An all-woman student team at Carle Illinois College of Medicine is turning to technology from NASA to help protect the youngest hospital patients from the potential negative effects of X-rays. The team is designing a special baby suit to protect infants who undergo repeated chest X-rays in the NICU from the long-term effects of radiation exposure.
CI MED student Annie Tigranyan – a mom of three – developed the concept after learning that babies in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) often undergo repeated X-rays in the earliest days of life with limited, if any, protection from radiation exposure.
“The average NICU baby gets two to three chest X-rays, but some babies in the NICU have been documented to get as many as 40-60 chest X-rays,” Tigranyan said. “Lifetime cancer risk increases with radiation exposure. For newborns and infants, we need to think about the impact on their total lifetime dose,” she said. Studies suggest that babies born early with extremely premature or with very low birth weight (less than 3 pounds, 4.6 ounces) are likely to undergo more X-rays, resulting in greater cumulative exposure to radiation. “We’re ensuring the littlest lives have the biggest futures,” Tigranyan said.
The team is applying for licensure to utilize a special anti-radiation coating material, originally developed by NASA for outer space applications, to create a onesie suit that protects infants from whole-body radiation exposure during routine medical imaging. Special flaps would allow access to the body part being x-rayed while protecting the infant’s other organs. “It is important to minimize radiation exposure given their increased vulnerability.”
CI MED students Debora Nya and Madeline Minneci, along with UIUC chemical engineering student Katherine Park are also passionate about “protecting the littlest lives.” The group of four women has been focused on designing several prototypes of their “astronaut suit” that is also hypoallergenic, thin, lightweight, and comfortable for some of our most precious patients. Health Innovation Professor Deana McDonagh, who is a design expert, mentored and helped the team incorporate human usability factors into their product design, as well as radiologists Dr. Juan Jimenez and Dr. Arielle VanSyckel (pediatric radiologist) and neonatologist Dr. Joseph O’Connell, all from Carle Health.
Tigranyan said the initial baby space suit would be marketed to hospitals, but there’s a potential secondary market to parents who want to protect their infants at the beach or in other settings in which radiation exposure is a concern. She said growing concerns about climate change could make the new suit especially attractive to parents.
The team completed the Great Lakes I-Corps program and the 2024 Cozad New Venture Challenge, winning funding and a year’s membership to the Illinois Research Park and EnterpriseWorks. The team has officially incorporated as Radiant Looms LLC and has filed for trademark protection.
Editor’s note: Deanna McDonagh is one of CI MED’s Research, Entrepreneurship, Design, and Innovation (REDI) faculty mentors who provide CI MED students with short-term assistance on design and innovation projects. Learn more here.