Pakistan has proved its mettle in the field of science and technology throughout history. Despite turbulent internal dynamics and scarce resource, Pakistan has produced significant technological strides in various domains.
Here are the top five innovations made by talented Pakistanis in medical field:
1- World’s first Portable MRI Machines
‘Hyperfine’ is an initiative of Dr Khan Siddiqui – Pakistani American healthcare professional, radiologist, engineer; who has developed portable MRI machines weighing around 635 kilograms as compared to the traditional MRI machines which weigh around 4.5 to 7.5 tonnes.
The company has already acquired 501(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) USA, for the world’s first-ever portable MRI scanner.
2- Bionic Arm
Muhammad Umer Tariq, Muhammad Umar Lodhi, Umair Ahmed are Pakistani software engineers who developed ‘brain controlled bionic arm’. The bionic arm uses brain-computer interface, machine learning, artificial intelligence, networking, mechatronics, and hardware development enabling its users to control it via brain waves.
3- Affordable and Bloodless Dialysis Machines
Byonyks – a Pakistan based company, collaborated with Federal Government’s Ministry of Information, Technology, and Telecommunication and successfully developed affordable and bloodless ‘risk-free’ dialysis machines, protecting the patients from possible life threatening infections during the procedure.
4- Painless injections
Ibrahim Sajid – a student at AKU’s Medical College, successfully developed a prototype ‘painless’ method to deliver injections to patients with trypanophobia – the extreme fear of needles – which leads to resisting or denying simple procedures like an intravenous drip and even essential vaccinations.
Ibrahim tried various ingenious methods such as Japanese hand fan and detachable cardboard sleeve to hide the injection from patients and effectively neutralizing the ‘visual stimulus’ enabling healthcare workers to administer vaccines, drips to patients suffering from trypanophobia.
5- Local Cardiac Stents production
Students of National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) Islamabad under Dr Murtaza Najabat Ali, successfully developed Pakistan’s first domestically produced cardiac stents.
The locally produced cardiac stents went through extensive testing and turned out to be at par with its international counterparts in clinical performance.
