LungElast, an open-source, flexible, low-cost, microprocessor-controlled mouse lung elastometer
Another use of open source hardware to make a research device for a fraction of the cost of available commercial products.
The author, Jesse D. Roberts, Jr., writes:
Elasticity is a critical physical property of the lung that enables it to pump air in and out as we breathe to sustain life. Scientists measure lung elasticity in order to better understand how the organ functions during health and disease, and to determine how new therapies might treat its disorders. But currently available elastometers are very expensive, not automated and, hence, difficult to use. Therefore, we used Adafruit ESP32, time of flight, stepper motor breakout boards, a few hand-soldered control boards, am inexpensive stepper motor, and custom 3D printed parts to construct a full-feature instrument, which we call LungElast.
We showed that this new instrument can automatically and precisely measure the lung elasticity of small animals. The device is controlled using MicroPython and is flexible, inexpensive (~$200 in total), and fully open source. It is anticipated that LungElast will rapidly be adopted by biologists to learn more about how the lung functions and to study the effects of new therapies.
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