Even before earning her bachelor’s degree, MIT professor and biomedical engineer Ellen Roche gained research experience in the medical device industry. In her third year at the National University of Ireland in Galway, Roche participated in a biomedical engineering program that put students to work at companies developing novel devices for patient care.
“I worked on cardiovascular implants during my internship, and I really enjoyed it,” says Roche, an assistant professor at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “For me, my early experience in the medical device industry was very influential because it exposed me to the complex process of what happens from the moment a technology is designed on a bench to the moment it is developed into a rigorously tested and reliable device that will actually be implanted in a human.”
In graduate school, a similar program took Roche first to Mednova Ltd. in Galway and then to its sister company, Abbott Vascular in California, initially for a six-month stint. Roche liked the job so much that she ended up staying for three and a half years. During her time at Mednova and Abbott, she worked on a carotid artery filter designed to prevent strokes during a procedure when a stent is implanted. She also investigated coating parts of stents with drugs that prevent arteries from closing.
Roche, who joined MIT as a tenured professor in July 2023, leads the Therapeutic Technology Design and Development Lab, which combines gentle robotics, advanced manufacturing methods, and computational analysis tools to develop novel devices that aid heal the heart, lungs, and other tissues. Some of the devices her team designs are intended to be implanted in patients, such as a gentle robotic ventilator, while others, such as a 3D-printed replica of a patient’s heart, enable research and testing of other therapies.
She encourages her students to find ways to collaborate and be versatile—and to gain some industry experience while they’re still in school. She says she tells them, “Be open to accepting good opportunities when they come, collaborate with like-minded people, and work hard at what you do, but adapt when necessary.”
“There are so many things that are hard to imagine until you spend some time in industry, including regulatory submissions, quality control, clinical trials, manufacturing considerations, sterilization, reliability, packaging, labeling, distribution and sales. It’s really a coordinated effort across multiple teams with multiple skills to bring a device to first-in-human trials,” Roche says. “That said, it’s one of the most rewarding.”
Born in Galway to a civil engineer father and radiologist mother, Roche always loved math, science and building things, and was also fascinated by medicine. She says she chose biomedical engineering because of its interdisciplinary nature and potential for social impact.
Roche says her mother had a “huge influence” on her career choices.
“She took me to the hospital to meet people using different medical devices and introduced me to one of my mentors in the industry,” she says. “She taught herself because the local girls’ school she attended didn’t offer advanced (or honors) math.”
After her time at Abbott, Roche says she wanted to expand her studies and learn about novel technologies that could be applied to medical devices. She went back to school, enrolling in a master’s degree in bioengineering at Trinity College Dublin. While earning her degree, she also worked at Medtronic, where she helped develop a replacement aortic valve that went from concept to clinical apply in humans, a process she says she was fortunate to experience firsthand.
She also studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to continue her doctoral studies.
“Receiving the Fulbright Science and Technology Fellowship solidified my plans to pursue graduate studies in the U.S.,” she says. She chose David Mooney, a professor of bioengineering, and Conor Walsh, a professor of engineering and applied sciences at Harvard University, as her doctoral advisors. “They were (and continue to be) incredibly supportive of my personal and professional development,” she says.
Roche has been working on a number of medical devices, including a gentle, implantable ventilator; a mechanism to prevent scar tissue from forming; and a robotic heart created using 3D printing. For the robotic heart, Roche and her team start with an MRI scan of the patient’s heart and, using a gentle material, print a replica of the heart, matching it to the anatomy, including any defects. With such a realistic model, scientists can then apply different treatments, such as prosthetic valves or other implantable devices, to test them and learn more about the biomechanics involved.
“We can look at different devices and tune the heart, depending on what we want to test,” Roche said on the “Curiosity Unbounded” podcast with MIT President Sally Kornbluth.
The 3D-printed heart and other medical simulators that Roche has been working on make it much easier and more productive to test interventions in patients, and could one day be used as implantable devices in humans.
“You could imagine that people with end-stage heart failure who are waiting for a transplant and are on long lists could have a printed, completely synthetic, beating heart,” Roche told Kornbluth.
Roche’s work has garnered numerous awards, including a 2019 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and has supported her entrepreneurial endeavors. Her medical device startup, Spheric Bio, which is developing a minimally invasive heart implant to prevent strokes, won the 2022 Faculty Founders Initiative Grand Prize and the Lab Central Ignite Golden Ticket, which supports startup founders from traditionally underrepresented groups in biotech.
Meanwhile, as part of its dual position as a lecturer in mechanical and medical engineering, Roche won the 2020 Thomas McMahon Mentoring Award, which is given annually to an individual who “through the warmth of their personality inspires and nurtures [Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology] students in their academic and personal development.” She also received the 2023 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award in recognition of exceptional teaching, research, and service.
According to Roche, the current research advances that most excite the company include treatments and devices that can be tailored to the needs of a specific patient, such as in silico studies and digital twins, where computational approaches can make it easier to study different interventions and predict their outcomes.
Roche’s expanding research into physical biorobotic simulators and computational models has piqued interest from industry and clinical teams. Recently, a local hospital asked it to build models to train heart surgeons on how to choose a pump or ventricular assist device based on a patient’s specific case. The models allow surgeons to test the effectiveness of assist devices in their work.
Roche has three newborn daughters whom he often takes to work, where “they love the environment, the students and the lab,” he says.
Somehow, he also finds time for triathlons, travel, and local Novel England beers. He’s currently planning to compete in a triathlon with his two PhD co-supervisors, Mooney and Walsh. Luckily, he says, he thinks best when he’s running, biking, or swimming—or behind schedule at night.
Dynamic and successful in many fields, Roche has a seemingly elementary piece of advice for her students who want to make an impact on the world: “Find a way to combine what you love, what you’re good at, and what will help others.”