Team Members: Taliyah Huang, Clara Cho, Frances Cockburn, Daphne Garcia-Lopez, Hubert Huho, Michael Yang, Sareena Naganand, Viet Ngomai 

Department: Biomedical Engineering

Each year in the U.S., about 100,000 new cases of interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) are diagnosed, and lung cancer remains the top cause of cancer-related deaths—underscoring the need for better pulmonary diagnostics. Lung cryobiopsy offers a minimally invasive, cost-effective alternative to surgical biopsy, with higher-quality tissue samples than forceps biopsy. However, removing frozen samples from the cryoprobe tip remains a key barrier to wider adoption. The CryoExtract Design Team developed a device, ICOR, to address this challenge with a simple, low-cost solution that integrates seamlessly into the existing workflow. In just one semester, they have gone from concept to usage in real patient procedures with evidence that ICOR significantly improves speed and sample quality. They recently presented to executives from the cryoprobe company Erbe at the Interventional Pulmonology conference and are quickly working towards having the ICOR device manufactured along with the next generation of cryoprobe kits.