Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Stony Brook Team Builds Spare-Parts Ventilator in 10 Days

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 04/21/20
ventilator

The CoreVent 2020, assembled into a patient-ready prototype and usable in a critical care setting. Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University.

A cross-disciplinary team at Stony Brook University in New York has prototyped and tested a ventilator that could be used as an alternative to standard ventilators should the supply run out. The project was done in 10 days.

The work was led by Jon Longtin, an associate dean in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a professor of mechanical engineering. The team also included John Brittelli, a clinical professor in the Respiratory Care Program in the School of Health Technology and Management, and Brian Margolis, a medical doctor and pulmonary disease specialist at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center. Other faculty, healthcare practitioners and clinicians were also involved.

According to the university, the ventilator was designed with simplicity in mind and "ease of fabrication" for a crisis situation. The team worked "day and night" to design, prototype, test and refine the "CoreVent 2020," a "computer-controlled, pressure-cycled, time-limited ventilator" that offers an assisted-breathing mode and the functionality for applying positive end-expiratory pressure (that part of breathing that exists at the end of expiration). It uses no proprietary components, includes low- and high-pressure alarm functions and provides visual system status indicators and a menu-based computer interface to control the ventilator.

"During this extraordinary time in medicine, it is vital that all corners of a research-oriented university be engaged to solve the myriad of problems facing healthcare professionals caring for our patients," said Kenneth Kaushansky, dean of the School of Medicine, in a statement. The development of the CoreVent 2020 in such a short timeline, he added, quoting New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, "illustrates that 'what we do here, what we do now, will define us.'"

Currently, the university is in discussions with New York-based Biodex Medical Systems, a medical device provider, to manufacture initial units of the new ventilator as the COVID-19 crisis in the state dictates. The campus currently hosts a coronavirus triage service, which is staffed with emergency medicine physicians and nurses, managed through the Stony Brook University Hospital.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • networked node grid featuring illuminated connectors

    Infrastructure Accounts for More than Half of Worldwide AI Spending

    Gartner forecasts worldwide AI spending will reach $2.67 trillion in 2026, up 49.5% from 2025, with AI infrastructure accounting for nearly $1.5 trillion, or about 56% of the total. For every dollar Gartner expects to be spent on generative AI models, more than $52 will be spent on infrastructure.

  • Abstract data center infrastructure

    Survey: Lack of Specialized Infrastructure Is a Top AI Adoption Challenge

    Enterprise AI projects are running into infrastructure questions as organizations move from planning toward deployment, according to a recent Digital Realty survey.

  • A glowing digital brain with neural connections and light trails

    AI Giants Warn It May Be Time to Slow Down

    For years, leaders in the artificial intelligence industry have warned that increasingly capable AI systems could eventually become dangerous, all the while continuing to race to build them. Now, their sentiments have changed.

  • man viewing holographic display of data and code

    Why Cross-Skilling Is the Smartest Investment a Campus IT Team Can Make

    Higher education IT teams are being asked to keep pace with AI, cloud, and cybersecurity on flat budgets, and hiring a specialist for every new need can no longer keep up. Building adjacent skills across the people already on staff creates more agile, resilient teams that move faster and retain talent without adding headcount. Pluralsight makes the strategy work through skill assessments, tailored learning paths, hands-on labs and sandboxes, and microlearning that fits into the flow of work.