The NCIIA Recognizes Collegiate Biomedical Engineering Innovations |
The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) presents
BMEidea Awards to three student teams with breakthrough discoveries for
nerve injuries, premature babies and the delivery of local anesthetic
HADLEY, Mass., June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the NCIIA presented awards
to three collegiate biomedical engineering teams, recognizing their
outstanding work in the field. The top winners in the Biomedical
Engineering Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Award (BMEidea)
Competition -- a national competition celebrating student biomedical
innovation -- were announced during the Medical Design Excellence Awards
ceremony at the Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) East trade show at
the Jacob Javits Center in New York.
The BMEidea Competition, now in its third year, is open to collegiate
teams from NCIIA member institutions across the United States. "These
student teams display an impressive level of creativity, drive and
professionalism," said Phil Weilerstein, Executive Director of the NCIIA.
"Their innovations show promise to change the future of healthcare, and we
are thrilled to support them as they move forward."
The first prize -- a cash award of $10,000 -- was awarded to Rapid
Suture from Stanford University. This team created a small, inexpensive
device that allows for the quick, safe and easy closure of laparoscopic
incision wounds after surgery. The device should make for easier suturing,
leading to reduced procedure times, fewer surgical risks and faster patient
recovery.
The second cash prize of $2,500 was given to the KMC ApneAlert team
from Northwestern University. This team's device monitors the abdominal
breathing movements of premature infants and sounds an alarm when the
infant stops breathing. The apnea monitor should allow for better detection
of apnea episodes, improving the success of the Kangaroo Mother Care
program and reducing apnea-related deaths among premature infants in the
developing world.
The third prize, $1,000 in cash, was given to the REGEN team from Johns
Hopkins University. REGEN is a small implantable receptacle that diffuses
pain-relieving analgesic at a controlled and sustained rate directly at the
site of a laparoscopic incision. This new approach to post-laparoscopic
surgery pain management should facilitate faster wound recovery; improve
safety; and decrease costs while minimizing side effects.
Teams from Georgia Institute of Technology, Stanford University School
of Medicine and University of Virginia all received honorable mentions for
their entries.
The BMEidea Competition is sponsored by the NCIIA; Canon Communications
LLC; the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA); the National Science
Foundation; and Guidant; and is endorsed by the Biomedical Engineering
Society (BMES), the Council of Chairs of Bioengineering and Biomedical
Engineering Programs.
About BMEidea
The Biomedical Engineering Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship
Award (BMEidea) is the brainchild of the BME Innovation, Design and
Entrepreneurship Alliance, a consortium of BME faculty from NCIIA member
institutions with an interest in stimulating innovative design and
entrepreneurial approaches in the biomedical field. First held in 2005,
this annual competition was created to help motivate student biomedical
innovation teams to move their projects forward. Winning teams are selected
from a pool of entries submitted by some of the nation's top biomedical
engineering departments and are judged by a panel of faculty and industry
representatives. Judges evaluate the teams on a variety of criteria-winners
are required to solve a pressing clinical problem; meet technical,
economic, legal and regulatory requirements; feature a novel and practical
design; and show potential for commercialization.
About the NCIIA
The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, an
initiative of the Lemelson Foundation, provides support through grants,
training and other resources to higher education institutions across the
country to encourage invention, innovation and entrepreneurship. For more
information, please visit http://www.nciia.org.
Contact:
Carrie Barnes
Phone: (215) 239-4643
carrie@elisecommunications.com
SOURCE National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance
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CONTACT:
Carrie Barnes, +1-215-239-4643,
carrie@elisecommunications.com, for National Collegiate Inventors
and Innovators Alliance
