Soo Leong specialises in design and development of medical devices, equipment and automated systems since 1985. He was actively involved in R&D of medical devices over the last 10 years, from proof of concept, proof of value to regulatory and ISO13485 compliance. During the early part of his career, he worked as a design engineer, chief engineer and later as project manager with several MNCs including Matsushita, PSB, Phillips Electronics, NUS, Vestas. He has delivered more than 30 major projects covering diverse industries such as healthcare, pharmaceutical, wind energy, precision engineering, electronics and interconnect, semiconductor, hard disk drive, food manufacturing, etc.
Soo Leong had also provided technical consultancy to local SMEs on setting up of production systems and implementing solutions for quality and productivity improvements. His latest interest is in the R&D collaboration with local hospitals, tapping on Ministry of Education and National Research Fund’s grants to develop medical devices for surgical applications. His recent patented project "percutaneous access targeting device for kidney stone surgery" was successfully commercialised.
Percutaneous nephrolithotomy or PCNL is a form of keyhole surgery performed through a small incision in the person's back to remove kidney stones larger than 2 cm. The surgeon puts a hollow tube into the kidney and a probe through the tube to break up and removes the stone. In order to put in the hollow tube, the surgeon must first create an access track down to the kidney using a long needle guided by X-ray or C-arm fluoroscope. The technique of inserting needle to the stone target is called percutaneous access to kidney. The technique is difficult to master due to the free hand trial-and-error approach. The surgeon is also at risk of over-exposure to X-ray.
Soo Leong and his team, together with the group of surgeons from local hospital, developed a cost effective positioning and stabilizing solution for PCNL. This passive medical device incorporates precision engineering to systematically adjust and guide the needle into alignment with the target. After adjustment, the device allows only one degree-of-freedom for inserting the needle onto the target. The patented device was successfully tested on animals and is currently in progress for clinical trial.
Infocomm
Electronics
Manufacturing
Manufacturing
Materials
Manufacturing
Electronics
Healthcare
Chemicals
Healthcare
Healthcare
Life Sciences
Materials
Manufacturing
Healthcare
Life Sciences
Healthcare
Life Sciences