Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Supervisor

Dr. Robert Sobot

Abstract

Safety Pharmacology is becoming an increasingly important field to pharmaceutical companies in order to determine if medical treatments (drugs) are safe for use in human subjects. In the pre-clinical phase, test models, most commonly small rodents, undergo various gene alterations to affect, for example, their cardiovascular system in order to emulate human diseases. Pharmaceutical companies rely on these models to determine the drug efficacy and to ensure minimal side effects and safety for human subjects. Currently, no fully implantable left-ventricle pressure--volume (PV) telemetry systems have been implemented for Safety Pharmacology assessment applications. A fully implantable PV telemetry system would not only allow safety pharmacologists to better determine a drugs effect on the heart over traditional assessment methods (heart rate, blood pressure, ECG) but would also improve drug efficacy with the additional physiological parameters that PV loops provide.

The research in this thesis focuses on the design, implementation, and testing phases of a wireless telemetry system for pressure--volume cardiac monitoring in a live animal subject. A commercial MEMS PV sensor is implanted into the subject's left-ventricle (LV), while the telemetry system is implanted outside of the heart and connected to the sensor with a 7-microwires tether. The RF telemetry system is suitable for commercial application in medium sized subjects, its total volume of 2.475 cm3 and a weight of 4.0 g. The designed system is 58% smaller in volume, 44% in weight and has a 55% reduction in sampling power over the last reported research in PV telemetry. In--vivo data was captured in both an acute and a freely moving setting over a 24-hour period.

This real--time implantable telemetry system allows researchers to continuously monitor cardiac health by collecting real-time chronic PV data from freely moving conscious animals. Thus, enabling safety pharmacologists to utilize the gold standard of PV loops in their drug studies by using PV implants, facilitating safer and more effective drugs for human use.

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