A deployed stent in the Aortic Training Aid, used to replicate aneurysms, used to practice or familiarize residents and fellows with advanced endovascular skills. [Image from Steve Anderson]
At the Mayo Clinic Glass Shop, scientific glassblowing creates glass tubing and apparatuses for cardiac, transplantation and tissue perfusion research — and more recently, to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Steve Anderson is one of only two scientific glassblowers in Minnesota. As a senior scientific glassblower at Mayo Clinic, he has developed glass aneurysm models, aortic stent placement training aids and liver perfusion systems. Recently, he received a request to make nebulizers to test the fit of N95 face masks in the fight against coronavirus. It was an apparatus he’s never made before.
“They can purchase the nebulizers made of plastic, but the people doing the testing prefer the glass models,” Anderson told Medical Design and Outsourcing. “They only have a few of the glass models, which are probably quite old, so they asked me to make up 20 more for them.”
Get the full story on our sister site, Medical Tubing + Extrusion.
