Internship: Biomedical Signal Processing and Data Analyst

About

We are Praxa Sense, a young medtech start-up working on the development of an innovative, data-driven device that enables patients to monitor their vital signs at home. We enable data collection over the long term, helping the medical professional to diagnose diseases earlier. Our goal is to improve the medical processes by making products that perfectly combine hardware, software, and user experience. We are also developing our own sensor in-house which could optimize some of the existing hardware out there. For this project, we are looking for an intern who likes a technical challenge.

We form a close and informal team with large ambitions and a diverse skill set.

Internship Opportunity

We are looking for a student who is interested in investigating and increasing the performance of the processing algorithms belonging to our novel Bio-sensor (patent pending). The sensor functions comparably to a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor, and is hence configured to measure cardiac flow in a non-invasive manner.

The student will be tasked with segmenting part of the current processing pipeline and investigate its working principles, and optimize for required computational resources and general performance/SNR. The project covers multiple disciplines:

• The project is software orientated, thus an affinity in Python or other languages such as R, and/or imaging analysis software is a strong plus.
• Since the analyzed signal represents a measure of blood flow, a proper understanding of the involved physiological parameters is required to optimize for SNR. The required knowledge can be learned during the internship, but experience with the subject is obviously a plus.
• In some cases the student might be required to retrieve data (and e.g., adjust measurement scripts) using the prototypes developed by Praxa Sense. These prototypes run on an RPI, thus a basic understanding of the Linux CLI advised.

The multidisciplinary aspect makes it a challenging project, however, most of the required background knowledge can be learned during the first part of the internship (provided that other skill levels are adequate, and the student can deliver some degree of autonomy).

Background

In PPG technology a LED and a photodiode are used to measure changes in blood volume. These volume changes are the direct result of the heartbeat and the saturation level of the patient. Through these changes the heart rate of the patient can be measured. In our newly designed sensor, we optimize this process by replacing some of the hardware which enables the removal of motion artifacts usually plaguing PPG measurements thus improving the accuracy of heart-rate measurements. The approach is both novel and supported by research from the TU Delft.

What we offer

• A young and professional, yet fun, team
• Lots of freedom to implement your ideas
• Opportunity to be hired after the internship or after your study
• Internship compensation of gross EUR 400,- per month

What we ask

• Bachelor/Master student in Physics, Bio-Medical Mechanical Engineering or other comparable field.
• Affinity in Python or other languages such as R, and/or imaging analysis software is a strong plus
• An interest in biophysics and healthcare is recommended.
• Proactive team player with good communication skills.
• Living in or near Delft (The Netherlands) or the possibility to move there for the internship is a must.

Interested and want to know more? Contact hr@praxasense.com

In your letter of motivation please state when you prefer your internship to start and for how many months. Applications without a letter of motivation will not be taken in account.