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A unique partnership between students and clinicians is paving the way for innovative medical devices that could help solve some of the most pressing health care problems.
Two years ago, the Whiting School of Engineering's Department of Biomedical Engineering launched the Center for Bioengineering Innovation & Design (CBID). This one-year master's program builds upon the success of the department's undergraduate student design projects and offers graduate students the opportunity to design, develop, test and assess the commercial viability of novel medical devices to be used in hospitals, clinics, and medical facilities worldwide. Time Magazine highlights one promising project to save maternal lives -- with a magic marker.
"This enables our students to work on real-life problems and potentially come up with life-saving devices," says Dean Nicholas P. Jones. "Our students work with experts at Hopkins schools of medicine and public health throughout the process in order to create products that meet the needs of doctors and patients."
To date, CBID's success has been stunning: Students have participated in 50 medical device projects for external clients, received 16 provisional patents, applied for three full patents, entered into four licensing agreements and formed two start-up companies.
In 2009, Johnson & Johnson's Corporate Office of Science and Technology invested $250,000 in CBID, establishing a Technology Accelerator Fund to jump-start innovative designs. CBID, in turn, matches these funds, which are distributed to students through a competitive bid process.
Some design ideas have included: an intensive-care walker that helps get patients up on their feet again after surgery; Listerine-type quick-dissolve strips that deliver much-needed vaccines to infants; and sutures that contain enzymes to make wounds heal more quickly.
This fall, after winning the Wharton School's Business Plan Competition, a four-member CBID team was invited to ring the closing bell on the NASDAQ stock market. Their invention was a new screw anchor for use during spinal surgery in patients with osteoporosis.
CBID is attracting attention from global organizations too. In 2009, Jhpiego, a non-profit Hopkins affiliate dedicated to advancing the health care of mothers and children worldwide, approached CBID with design challenges. These global health projects have enabled students to broaden the scope of their work - and their own lives.
Fifteen students last summer spent two weeks on a Hopkins-style summer vacation in India, Asia and Africa, examining health problems facing some of the world's most vulnerable women and children. "We are trying to develop extremely affordable technologies that are custom-designed for taking care closer to where women are having problems, often far away from any formal health care setting," says Jhpiego Medical Director Harshad Sanghvi.
Sean Monagle, 22, of Jacksonville, Fla, worked as an undergraduate on a test for preeclampsia, a condition in pregnant women marked by high blood pressure and protein in urine. The product -- a pen, similar in concept to a highlighter -- is used on paper and contains a reagent to detect protein in urine.
While in Nepal, Monagle tested the pen in a laboratory. "It was productive to see how many people actually loved the idea," Monagle says. The U.S. Agency for International Development also liked the idea, awarding Jhpiego $100,000 grant to refine design of the pen and fund further clinical trials.
In a second floor Hopkins laboratory on Homewood campus, Monagle and his colleagues are just one team hard at work on design concepts that they hope will change health care for global patients. First up, for this group: Getting their protein pen into the lab and tested before distribution.
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