6 [charting new territory] Excellence in Research
7 UNM GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH HELPS SURGEONS REPAIR JAWS Scott Lovald was looking for an interesting research problem to tackle for his master’s degree in mechanical engineering at the UNM School of Engineering. Since mechanical engineering includes everything from moving automobile parts to fluid dynamics, it was difficult for him to decide where to focus. Meanwhile, across campus at University Hospital, plastic surgeon Dr. Jon Wagner had a nagging problem. The UNM trauma unit treats more than 400 broken jaws a year, most of them in young men from ages 16 to 40, and Wagner had to fit them with heavy titanium plates to bridge the fractures. The patients were left with facial scars, infections, and plate and screw problems as they healed. In frustration, Wagner began talking with engineers. When he spoke with mechanical engineering professors John Wood and Tariq Kraishi, they told him the solution would require a standard engineering software program called “finite element modeling,” a lot of information about jaws, and a very energetic graduate engineering student. Rethinking Jaws Lovald became that student. He spent the next three years inputting data on the stresses and strains in a healing jaw as a patient bites and chews, and he began to come up with some answers. “We looked at stress in the bone. We could determine if a screw would pull out of the bone. We could look at stress on the plate. We could determine if that plate was likely to yield and break,” says Lovald, who really liked the idea of solving problems that make a difference in people’s lives. fractures in lower jaws. Wagner could insert the smaller plates through the mouth, eliminating the facial scars and resulting in fewer complications. From Student to Entrepreneur Meanwhile, Lovald began to tinker with the software and redesigned the plates so that the healing bones would have even less stress on them. Now he has a software program geared specifically to solving these kinds of stress and strain problems, some redesigned plates, and the beginnings of a business. His patent application is pending with the U.S. Patent Office. Lovald was also a student in the UNM MBA program. He and another business student, Ryan Smith, entered and won a business plan competition at UNM’s Anderson School of Management and with the $25,000 prize, decided to start their business, Satyrne. They have also presented the plan at business competitions around the country, winning 1st place in the challenge round at Rice University and 3rd place at the San Diego State University Venture Challenge. Satyrne Technologies InterFlex Fixation System has been cleared by the U.S. FDA for use in general trauma procedures, and the next step is to bring it into the marketplace. Lovald and Wagner are currently working on papers to publish their results and spread the word among surgeons. Tariq Kraishi and Scott Lovald Using Lovald’s findings, Wagner began changing the way he fixed jaws. He started using smaller, commercially-available plates manufactured for upper jaws to bridge the