The Dandy-Walker Alliance is collaborating with Bionaut Labs to educate our constituency about an investigational new treatment for obstructive hydrocephalus associated with Dandy-Walker Syndrome.
Bionaut Labs has developed a “Bionaut™” a remote-controlled micro-scale robot designed to treat life-threatening central nervous system conditions by delivering treatments to regions of the brain that are otherwise difficult or impossible to access with current interventions. The device is smaller than a grain of rice, measuring about one millimeter in length.
These “Bionauts” may be used to pierce and relieve the obstruction caused by obstructive hydrocephalus cysts in certain Dandy-Walker patients. The procedure is minimally invasive; the Bionaut is injected into the base of the skull and guided by low magnetic forces (1/10 to 1/100th of that used in an MRI). After piercing and draining the cyst, the Bionaut is then removed from the body.
The Dandy-Walker Alliance will help identify and educate patients who meet the criteria and are willing to share their MRIs for the purpose of training the Bionaut devices. Bionaut Labs will use patient MRIs to train the devices on the procedure and automate their recognition of fluid filled cysts in the brain. These images will help the Bionaut engineering team better identify the different structures associated with this form of obstructive hydrocephalus and allow them to optimize the Bionauts for clinical procedures going forward.
“We are incredibly excited about this opportunity to partner with Bionaut Labs,” said Dandy- Walker Alliance Founder and President Eric Cole. “This technology has the potential to change the lives of numerous individuals in our Dandy- Walker community, and we look forward to supporting Bionaut Labs as they work to make it a reality.”
“This collaboration is a critical step in developing Bionauts for treatment of obstructive hydrocephalus associated with Dandy-Walker,” said Dr. William Loudon, a veteran neurosurgeon and VP of Neuroscience at Bionaut Labs. “We look forward to working with the Alliance as we pursue our mission of providing better treatment option and quality of life for these patients.”
All images will be kept confidential and will be directly submitted to Bionaut Labs.
You can learn more about the Bionaut technology here. For any questions about how to get involved and submit images, please contact Dr. William Loudon at clinical@bionautlabs.com.