Karen Buch looked at the junk in her basement and saw more than an opportunity for a yard sale. Instead, the sophomore turned discarded toys and tools into new medical technology.
Buch began her journey to becoming a patented inventor by undertaking a project with funds and support by her high school. Within a year of taking her first step, Buch successfully developed a new measuring device for microscopic particles.
"I constructed an instrument to measure pattern dimensions that literally came out of materials from my basement," Buch said.
Buch defines her invention as both a method and an instrument. Essentially, when an object is placed in the path of the laser beam, diffraction and interference patterns occur naturally. These patterns vary according to the dimensions and orientations of the obstruction.
"I studied these patterns and modified Young's Two Slit experiment to apply for three dimensional obstructions," Buch said.
This experiment is one of the fundamentals of modern physics and is based on the fourth law of logic. In Young's experiment, electrons are released from a source and travel past a wall with two slits in it en route to a screen. One would assume that the electrons would either go through one of the two slits or be absorbed by the wall area between the slits. But this is not the case. The pattern created in this setup is identical to that which would be created if the electrons were actually wavefronts traveling through both slits at once. Yet, each electron still makes contact with the screen at only one point.
Using these concepts, Buch found a way to distinguish abnormally sized blood cells (erythrocytes) from normal ones. This categorization is useful in studying conditions like sickle-cell anemia. The invention can also be used as an alternative method for measuring almost any microscopic obstruction.
Buch's invention did not require the high-tech materials that one would associate with sophisticated medical technology.
"It consists of a laser mounted on a trapezoidal arm from my father's old erector sets, a spring to provide tension in the arm, a thumbscrew that, when twisted, enables the arm to move up and down, and a slide holder [positioned] a given distance from the laser beam," Buch said.
To get the instrument to work, Buch pointed it at a projection wall from a given distance and then inserted the slide into the field of view.
Buch is skeptical about her instrument's place in the future of hospital tests. Hospitals already have access to instruments that are more accurate, precise, and efficient, and Buch's alternative method requires training and a lot of math to measure the patterns. She wishes she had been able create a computer program to calculate the necessary algorithms for the user of the instrument.
Buch's creation makes one assumption that critically affects its uses - the idea that blood cells are spherical, when in fact they are really donut-shaped.
"This assumption does seem a little drastic at first, but very modern medical devices such as flow cytometry make this assumption as well," Buch said.
Buch arrived at Tufts with years of interest in scientific experimentation and research. She conducted science experiments when she was young and has always been inspired by her father, whom she calls "a true lover of the sciences and inventions."
Despite this talent for science, Buch said she never expected her experiment to work. Since blood cells are transparent, and she had been calibrating the instrument with opaque obstructions, Buch could not be sure of how to account for the complex interference patterns that she was encountering.
"I remember up until three days before my research project was due, I couldn't figure out how to interpret the patterns, let alone image them," Buch said. "On that third day, I'm not really sure what made me do it. I had been very frustrated with my project and, on the verge of giving up, I decided to do one last measurement and, eureka, there it was!"
Here at Tufts, Buch is keeping herself busy in the engineering department by double majoring in electrical engineering and biomedical engineering. While this first invention involves biology, Buch does not foresee a career in this field. But, she hopes to go into the related field of medical instrumentation and perhaps develop medical prosthetics.
"After this, I am not sure what is next. All I know for now is that I want to know as much as I can. The more I know, the more I can do with my knowledge," Buch said.
One last question remains about Buch's invention: what will it be named?
"Because it consists of a method, it is known as 'An Alternative Method for Measuring the Dimensions of Three-Dimensional Obstructions Such as Blood Cells Using Interference Patterns and Laser Light Diffraction," Buch said. "Unfortunately, it's not too creative of a name."
