Improving Patients’ Lives

Made possible by a transformative gift from Northwestern Trustee Kimberly K. Querrey, the Querrey Simpson Institute for Translational Engineering for Advanced Medical Systems (QSI-TEAMS) will serve as a bridge between academic technology advances and commercialization at the University. Bioelectronics pioneer John A. Rogers, director of the new institute, shares how QSI-TEAMS will accelerate the adoption of breakthrough medical technologies at scale. 

What is QSI-TEAMS? 

The name says it all. The goal is to bring researchers from the McCormick School of Engineering — especially the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics — into close collaboration with clinicians at the Feinberg School of Medicine to develop new technologies that improve patient care.  

Your lab has led the creation of electronic systems that integrate with the human body to monitor patient health. How will QSI-TEAMS scale up this type of work? 

Over the years, our University programs have focused on developing innovative technologies that have the potential to move beyond an academic setting into commercial production and deployment, improving how health care is delivered for millions of patients. We’ve had some significant successes recently through startup companies that emerged from our work. The academic research at the foundations of these startups, however, has been constrained by our limited capacity to operate at scales needed to capture datasets for machine learning inferencing. This is critical for extracting clinically actionable insights and for capturing detailed information on patient interactions, clinical workflow integration and other practical considerations. 

What QSI-TEAMS projects are now underway? 

I’ll describe two of our six launch projects. We’re working with Ankit Bharat, Northwestern Medicine’s chief of thoracic surgery, to develop soft, wearable devices that simultaneously track airflow in the lungs, changes in cardiac rhythms and chest wall movements to assess lung health at levels of precision that exceed those associated with current clinical practice. And with Lorenzo Gallon from the University of Illinois Chicago, we’re developing a thin, microfluidic device that adheres to the skin to measure urea and creatinine levels in sweat. This technology makes it possible, for the first time, to monitor patients’ kidney health from home without trained personnel or the need to visit a hospital for a blood draw and lab analysis. The base device technologies in both cases are already proven but only in pilot-scale studies. In activities supported by QSI-TEAMS, we’re expanding these projects to refine the technology, validate the insights at scale and publish the results in top medical journals. This work not only helps improve the foundational engineering science but also enhances the technological readiness for commercialization efforts. It provides experiential educational opportunities for students as well. 

How has support from Kimberly Querrey shaped Northwestern’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem? 

The impact is almost impossible to overstate. Kimberly and her late husband, Louis Simpson ’58, have been passionate about the idea that technology will provide solutions to grand societal challenges in health care and that science and engineering in the biomedical space will be crucial going forward. They have a record of philanthropy that’s very much aligned with that vision and belief. It includes their support for the Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Center in Chicago, where my team has lab space, and a range of Northwestern research institutes and entrepreneurship programs funded by their gifts.