research engineer and machinist who builds scientific equipment for the University of Vermont, in Burlington, came into work fired up. Approaching another engineer, Carl Silver, he said, “We gotta build a ventilator.”
“That sounds great,” Silver replied. “What do we know about ventilators?”
Neither had ever seen one. But the computer science vs engineering, once an abstraction, had recently made itself felt in Seattle, New York, and other American cities, and doctors had warned that a shortage of ventilators could hasten the deaths of thousands. “You feel like you want to do something,” Silver recalled. The next week, Kittell e-mailed another professor at the university, Jason Bates, with whom they had worked in the past, and whom they knew to be a lung expert. We have a shop, he wrote. Can we build a ventilator?
Well, sure, Bates thought. He’d been working on the same problem for the previous four days.
Bates has wispy white hair and speaks with lucid, cheery confidence. Originally from England, he is a professor of medicine and of biomedical engineering, and teaches in both the university’s engineering department and its medical school. The author of “Lung Mechanics: An Inverse Modeling Approach,” he is one of the world’s foremost experts on ventilator-induced lung injury, or vili. Earlier in his career, at McGill University, in Montreal, Bates and his team invented a computer-controlled ventilator for mice that is still used by researchers. By tuning the machine’s settings and seeing how a mouse’s lungs react under pressure, scientists can study the physiology of lung disease. They can also explore how different styles of ventilation—in which air is moved into and out of the lungs at various volumes, pressures, and rhythms—can help or hurt a damaged lung.
“That sounds great,” Silver replied. “What do we know about ventilators?”
Neither had ever seen one. But the computer science vs engineering, once an abstraction, had recently made itself felt in Seattle, New York, and other American cities, and doctors had warned that a shortage of ventilators could hasten the deaths of thousands. “You feel like you want to do something,” Silver recalled. The next week, Kittell e-mailed another professor at the university, Jason Bates, with whom they had worked in the past, and whom they knew to be a lung expert. We have a shop, he wrote. Can we build a ventilator?
Well, sure, Bates thought. He’d been working on the same problem for the previous four days.
Bates has wispy white hair and speaks with lucid, cheery confidence. Originally from England, he is a professor of medicine and of biomedical engineering, and teaches in both the university’s engineering department and its medical school. The author of “Lung Mechanics: An Inverse Modeling Approach,” he is one of the world’s foremost experts on ventilator-induced lung injury, or vili. Earlier in his career, at McGill University, in Montreal, Bates and his team invented a computer-controlled ventilator for mice that is still used by researchers. By tuning the machine’s settings and seeing how a mouse’s lungs react under pressure, scientists can study the physiology of lung disease. They can also explore how different styles of ventilation—in which air is moved into and out of the lungs at various volumes, pressures, and rhythms—can help or hurt a damaged lung.
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