Interview with Dr. Joseph Vettukattil, Director of IAMRAI and Professor of Practice at VIT School of Healthcare Science and Engineering (SHINE)
Founded in 2019, Institute of Advanced Medical Research and Innovation (IAMRAI) is a Hyderabad-based interdisciplinary platform that unites experts in engineering and medicine to drive healthcare innovation. The organization focuses on bridging gaps in biomedical engineering by providing financial support, intellectual property protection, and developmental assistance to transform creative concepts into practical, affordable treatments. Driven by social impact rather than profit, IAMRAI aims to make India a self-reliant global leader in sustainable medical technology while reducing dependence on expensive imports. The initiative is headed by Prof. Joseph Vettukattil as Director, with Dr. Sreedhar Vakati from Remedies Lab and Dr. K.R. Balakrishnan from MGM Healthcare, supporting the effort as Co-Directors.
The VIT-IAMRAI Centre of Excellence on Medical Engineering features two advanced medical-grade braiding machines, valued at approximately INR 2 crore, used to fabricate Nitinol-based cardiovascular devices. Utilizing the clinical expertise of Dr. Joseph Vettukattil, the facility focuses on the shape-setting and heat treatment of shape-memory alloys to produce world-class, indigenous medical solutions. Additionally, the center houses a dedicated imaging wing featuring Voxcellence Imaging Innovation to provide high-precision 3D visualization of clinical radiographs and MRIs for enhanced pathological assessment.
Dr. Joseph Vettukattil shares his insights on the newly inaugurated VIT-IAMRAI MedTech Hub.
Excerpts from the Interview:
Q) All the while you have developed and worked with so many cardiovascular devices. So, how would this medical-grade braiding machines and use of Nitinol-shaped memory alloys at this centre specifically bridge the gap between clinical concepts and the mass production of “Made in India” devices?
A) Thank you for asking such an important question. What is happening in India is that most of the devices made in this country especially novel implantable devices are quite often manufactured outside India and then packaged and delivered from there.
The problem with innovative devices are that if made abroad, the cost of development, research and delivery is much higher than the indigenously created ones. So, indeed indigenously made devices will make it more affordable. A major problem currently is that engineering students who are trained in most of the institutions in India get a very good thorough theoretical background, but the practical experience needed to convert their theory into something that is useful or translational to help the patients is more of medical in nature. So, what we are trying to do is to bridge that gap by bringing braiding technology in shape memory methods like Nitinol which can be now braided. VIT-IAMRAI Center of Excellence will become a unique facility where students will have direct exposure in practical understanding of how to select the wires, how to braid them – technical braiding, how to heat set them, how to assemble the devices, how to make a prototype etc.
In the process, we will be creating a new generation of engineers who will be well-versed in Nitinol technology and making new devices which will be affordable and Made in India.
Q) The new centre features Voxcellence Imaging Innovation for 3D visualization. Given your international recognition in 3D echocardiography, how will this voxel-based platform change the way surgeons plan for complex structural heart interventions compared to traditional MRI or scans?
A) Everything in life are seen in 3 dimensions, but when it comes to medical technologies today, you are seeing images from the body in 2 dimensions on a flat scale. So, you are losing the spatial orientation whereas when a physician works on a patient, it is a real patient in three dimension. So, to plan something or convert a 2-dimensional day scale image in your mind into 3-dimensional one, it has to be constructed in your brain and applied to the patient and even then the patient do not know exactly what the problem is that you are contemplating or you are finding a solution to. What Voxcellence does is that it projects the 2D images in front of you without glasses in 3 dimensions and that 3-dimensional volume can be dissected in any plane, at any level and we call it immortalization of image. That means this image is permanent. It cannot be destroyed. So, even when patient is progressing in life, with cancer or some other illnesses, this image is there as a gold standard for you to compare a future.
So, you can then plan how a particular procedure is done. For a reconstructive surgery for breast cancer patients, after removing the tumour, there is a gap that needs to be filled and the construction of the breast has to be in a cosmetically appropriate manner, in 3-dimension and that cannot be done on a flat scale.
Voxcellence will provide a 3-dimensional platform in which a surgeon can actually practice. You can give a shape to the idea, show the patient how it will look after the surgery and the patient can visualize with the doctor how the future is going to be. The patient also can see how the tumour is and after the removal of it, a CT scan can be done and shown to the patient as well. So, it is practical democratization of imaging so that the patient and the doctor see the same thing in 3-dimension as it should.
Q) We welcome you on board as Professor of Practice at the School of Healthcare Science and Engineering (SHINE) and look forward to your active contribution to the quality research to be carried out in this new Centre of Excellence.
A) Thank you. It’s a great opportunity for me to meet students and research scholars, who can be trained well and we can interact more for betterment of science and patients and future.
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