Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, awarded $29,150 to Zion Tse to develop a cardiac catheter that uses MRI to navigate through arteries and perform precise keyhole surgery in the heart. MRI scanners use powerful magnets to generate a detailed image of internal organs such as the brain or heart, but the magnetic fields-which are up to 25,000 times the force of the Earth’s magnetic field-prevent the use of most modern surgical techniques. Tse’s lab designs medical robots that can withstand high magnetic fields. The catheter will contain electronics that will provide high-resolution images and miniaturized surgical tools that allow the surgeon to operate on heart tissue in a minimally invasive manner. Tse is an assistant professor in the College of Engineering and oversees its medical robotics laboratory.
