The factors that influence successful patient care are many and varied. For example, early diagnosis, proper adherence to prescription drug schedules, and effective monitoring and treatment of chronic diseases contribute to better outcomes. However, the impact of each of these factors can be hampered by external influences – medications do not work as well if they are not taken as directed, and the disease may be missed or misdiagnosed at an early stage if symptoms are subtle or absent.
Giovanni Traverso, Karl Van Tassel Professor of Career Development, associate professor of mechanical engineering and gastroenterologist in the department of gastroenterology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), is working on a number of novel solutions to improve patient care. As a physician and engineer, he brings a unique perspective.
“Combining these two fields can really help transform and accelerate our ability to develop new biomedical devices or new therapies for a range of conditions,” he says. “As physicians, we are extremely fortunate to be able to help individuals. As scientists and engineers, we can not only help individuals, but also populations.”
Doctor, engineer, innovator
Video: MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering
Traverso discovered his passion for this work early on. His family lived in his father’s native Peru for much of his childhood, but left in the slow 1980s, at the height of the country’s political instability, and emigrated to Canada, where he entered high school.
“In high school, I had the amazing opportunity to spend time in a lab,” he says. “I really fell in love with molecular genetics. I loved the lab environment and the opportunity to study a very specific problem with the hope that these solutions would ultimately help people.”
He entered medical school immediately after high school, attending the University of Cambridge, but interrupted his studies to obtain an M.D. from Johns Hopkins University before returning to Cambridge. After graduating from medical school, he completed a residency in internal medicine at BWH and a fellowship in gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. As part of his postdoctoral research, he moved to the fields of chemical and biomedical engineering in the laboratory of Professor Robert Langer.
Traverso’s current research interests include biomedical device development, ingestible and implantable robotics, and drug delivery for optimal drug adhesion. His academic home at MIT is in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, but his work integrates many fields, including mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, materials science, and synthetic biology.
“The mechanical engineering department is a great place to work with students and faculty to develop next-generation medical devices,” he says. “Fundamental mechanical principles underlie many of these medical devices.”
Traverso team in Translational Engineering Laboratory develops pioneering biomedical devices such as drug delivery systems that enable the secure and effective delivery of drugs, as well as novel diagnostic tests that support the early detection of diseases.
As he says, the essence of his work is “trying to help others. Patients, of course, but also students, to help them see the arc from bench to bedside and stimulate their interest in careers that involve applying engineering to improve human health.”