Metal detectors for removing surgical screws,
intensive care walkers and radiological markers
for locating tumors... what will they think of next?
"They" are undergraduate and master's student design
teams in the Johns
Hopkins Department of Biomedical Engineering that each
year team up with School of Medicine faculty to create new
medical devices.
Now, Johns Hopkins'
Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design, an arm
of the Biomedical Engineering Department that guides the
student teams, has received $250,000 from the Johnson &
Johnson Corporate Office of Science and Technology to build
better prototypes and speed the translation of good designs
into clinical solutions.
"This Technology Accelerator Fund provides much-needed
resources for our student design
teams to build top-quality prototypes," said Elliot
McVeigh, professor and Bessie Darling Massey Chair
of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins. "And the whole
process of pitching ideas to compete for
this funding provides an extraordinary training
experience."
The Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design,
or CBID, will match the funds provided by
Johnson & Johnson and plans to award funds to student teams
in two categories, starting in the fall
2009 semester. Prototype development funds of $1,000 to
$10,000 will be awarded for conceptual or
early-stage projects, and incubator funds of $50,000 to
$100,000 will be awarded to continue select
projects deemed by a committee of faculty members and
industry representatives to be potentially
highly successful.
Nick Jones, the Benjamin T. Rome Dean of the Whiting School of
Engineering at Johns Hopkins,
said, "The CBID program gives our engineering students
direct interaction with superb clinical faculty.
These students have the opportunity to take on significant
design problems that address real needs in
medicine."
More information on Bioengineering Innovation and
Design programs can be obtained by
contacting Marybeth Camerer, academic program manager at
CBID, at 410-516-0786 or
camerer@jhu.edu.
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