At 22, Firoza Kothari from Mumbai, a Biotech engineer scripted history via 3D printing. She helped save the life of a 9-month-old with an abnormal hole in the heart. She created a replica of the infant’s heart, a stint that was touted as a first for cardiac 3D printing in India.
His pulmonary artery and aorta came from the right ventricle instead of the former which typically comes out of the left. The doctors at Fortis Hospital were in a fix as the heart was too small to operate on and the surgery carried huge risks. That’s when the surgical team reached out to Sahas Softech LLP, a 3D printing venture founded by Firoza’s brother, Sohrab Kothari and his friend Sagar Shah. Firoza had just joined the company and it was their first experiment in the healthcare sector.
After an in-depth study of the case, it was Firoza who came up with a 3D replica of the heart from the baby’s MRI scan within 48 hours. The surgeons practised the procedure by opening the heart chambers,…