Dr. Nguan receives Roche Canada COVID-19 Open Innovation Challenge funding to develop the gVent

Dr. Christopher Nguan, director of the Surgical Technologies Experimental Laboratory and Advanced Robotics (STELLAR) facility at UBC, Associate Professor in the Department of Urologics Sciences, and a VPC Associate, lead one of 11 projects to receive funding from the Roche Canada COVID-19 Open Innovation Challenge. Announced on March 27, this funding program recieved 840 applications for projects bringing forward innovative ideas to address some of the biggest challenges and issues of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Nguan created and co-leads the the UBC Sprint Open Source Emergency Ventilator Project (SOS e-Vent). SOS e-Vent is a collaboration of 50 doctors, engineers and students working to produce novel low-cost ventilators and other respiratory support equipment that can be produced quickly from readily available materials. The description of their Gravity Ventilator proposal is below.

Demand for ventilators to support critically ill COVID acute respiratory distress symptoms (ARDS) patients has the potential to exceed supply, resulting in excessive patient morbidity and mortality. British Columbia (BC) has an index of 10.3 ventilators per 100,000 persons, which is well below the national average of 14.9/100k. Using the concepts of water seals and pressure operated devices, a low cost, simple, mechanical positive-pressure ventilator for rapid production at scale was built: the gVent. The UBC SOS eVent Group’s mission is to build a simple, low-cost ventilator for use within the BC health system.