Throughout the summer, Skandalaris Center Summer Internship Program participants will be writing guest blog posts about their internship experience. Following is one such post. 

Illumino – Innovating Surgical Visualization to Fight Colorectal Cancer 

By Jake Eshelman (TG)

My name is Jake Eshelman and I’m entering my senior year at Washington University studying biomedical engineering. I’m also part of the 4-2 dual degree program, meaning I received a 4 year degree from the College of Wooster in biochemistry before coming to Washington University to complete a degree in 2 years in biomedical engineering. The College of Wooster was in a cornfield in the depths of rural Ohio, so getting to work as a Skandalaris Center summer intern my first summer outside of Wooster has been an incredible contrast. Wooster was primarily a research school that emphasized a lot of reading and writing, and getting to test and refine my skills through this internship has taught me so much in only the first few weeks.

I find biomedical engineering to be such an exciting field because of how new it is. The field was introduced in the early 1970s, meaning there’s unimaginable room for innovation as the field develops. A great way to go about this is through startups, which is the exact opportunity the Skandalaris Center summer internship has provided. I’m currently working for a company called Illumino. The company was formed to try and solve problems with visualization during colorectal surgery. During these surgeries surgeons have a near impossible task that they complete with staggering efficacy. An incision about the size of your hand is made in the abdomen, and the surgeon must then navigate the dark crowded interior of the abdomen to cut out a tiny piece of skin no bigger than a dime in some cases. This dime sized piece of skin is a colorectal cancerous polyp, and a single slip of the knife could open the polyp spreading its blood to nearby tissues. This spreading is called metastasis and proves fatal for thousands every year. The small area where surgeons must work is often crowded by retractors to hold the area open, assistants holding lights, heads crowding the area above the incision, and much more. Taking away any of this clutter provides precious and potentially life saving breathing room for the surgeons tasked with completing the surgery. This is where Illumino’s task begins. To avoid an extra hand lighting the surgeon’s field of view, we wanted to give the surgeons a low-profile light source that could illuminate the area better than any of their current tools.

Figure 1: The envisioned low profile light (left) and its application where it is adhered to the inside of a basic abdomen model to provide light (right).

With a flat circular design pictured above (left), the lights would be placed on the front of the device while an adhesive would be placed on the back. The device would be placed within the body cavity where it would adhere to the walls and light the entire abdomen from the inside. Here it takes up essentially no room, and provides better lighting due to the light being contained entirely within the abdomen. At Illumino, we work with businessmen, lawyers, surgeons, and manufacturers to bring this product to life where it can begin aiding in colorectal surgeries.

The Skandalaris Center internship has provided me with the resources and guidance to help make this product a reality. Through weekly panels where we meet with local startup members to gain insights on the startup process, the monetary support that is so vital to early startups, and the community of other interns I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with. Coming from a small rural school this program is everything that I could have asked for. It has helped introduce me to the startup community and given me a jump start to helping to bring new concepts to life.