Associate Professor Kiao Inthavong may work as an engineer, but his current impact is in the field of biohealth. His research focuses on fluid mechanics and how fluids and particles move through a human nasal airway. The Biomedical and Health Innovation Platform supported his workshop which brought clinicians and pharmaceutical companies together to address key issues in their field, namely, how to best deliver nasal fluids.
Clinicians have specialised skill sets in anatomy and physiology, but engineers know nothing about this. The Biomedical and Health Innovation Platform hosted an industry event for the Society for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) of the Nose & Airways (SCONA). Inthavong and his team harnessed the increased interest in the field of CFD with the Nose and Airway and brought together researchers in engineering and healthcare to convene and explore the frontiers of this new field. The workshop provided a launching pad for future meetings between clinicians and engineers through the SCONA annual international meetings, (e.g., SCONA 2019 in Chicago; SCONA 2022 in Oklahoma, USA; and the latest SCONA 2023 in Brisbane).
Currently, Inthavong is working with clinicians to develop drug delivery targeting the larynx, following the successful re-design of a new nasal irrigation squeeze bottle for a local pharmaceutical company in Hawthorn.
Journal articles exploring this important research highlight the ‘Characterization of nasal irrigation flow from a squeeze bottle using computational fluid dynamics’, ‘How nasal geometry affects airflow dynamics’, and a recent book “Clinical and Biomedical Engineering in the Human Nose” was published with Springer-Nature.
