A Carle Illinois College of Medicine student has earned top honors at an international gastroenterology conference for her video explaining a new robot-assisted device that could revolutionize colonoscopies. The video was created by CI MED student Claire Landewee as part of her work with US- and UK-based teams exploring robotics in medicine and features a new colonoscopy tool under development at Vanderbilt University.
Landewee’s video explains how the new Magnetic Flexible Endoscope (MFE) device improves on conventional colonoscopes used to screen patients for colorectal cancer and remove pre-cancerous polyps. The MFE is a single-use, robot-assisted device made of ultra-flexible tubing that contains a camera, a light, and a magnet at the tip. The magnet inside the tip allows the MFE to be advanced through the colon by a second magnet attached to a robotic arm located outside the body. Because the endoscope tip is pulled by the magnetic coupling, rather than pushed through the colon, there’s less stress on the colon walls. “We anticipate a procedure with the MFE will be safer and less painful, requiring less, if any, procedural sedation,” said Landewee, who has worked with the device’s developers at the Science and Technology of Robotics in Medicine (STORM) Lab at the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) since 2019. The group’s UK counterpart at the University of Leeds has also contributed to the development, with clinical trials scheduled to launch this summer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The MFE is designed for use to both diagnose and treat abnormalities in the lower GI tract. The device is also expected to be easier to learn to navigate than traditional colonoscopes.
Landewee, a member of the Class of 2025, says CI MED’s engineering-based medical curriculum is excellent preparation for her future career. “The field of gastroenterology relies heavily on constant innovation to ensure patients receive the best care using cutting-edge, minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic medical devices,” Landewee said. “CI MED’s curriculum not only gives me the understanding to identify and use the best devices on the market but also the foundation to develop new devices and therapeutic approaches as a physician-innovator.”
Landewee’s video won the ‘Best of the Best’ award in the ‘lower GI category’ from the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) at the 2023 Digestive Disease Week international conference in Chicago in early May. Landewee was the only medical student to work on the video, which she presented live at the conference. Her co-authors on the video include Conchúbhair Winters, James Martin, Joseph Norton, Simone Calò, Bruno Scaglioni, Tamaryn Townley, Jun Wai Kow, Pietro Valdastri, Venkataraman Subramanian, and Keith Obstein, all affiliated with Vanderbilt University in the US or the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.