Johnson & Johnson Fuels Prototype Development of Medical Devices

April 1, 2009- 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 at the Johns HopkinsDepartment of Biomedical Engineering who each year team up with School of Medicine faculty to create new medical devices.

Now, Hopkins’ Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID), 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,” says Elliot McVeigh, Ph.D., the Massey Professor and Director of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins. “And the whole process of coming up with pitching ideas to compete for this funding provides an extraordinary training experience.”

The 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 potentially highly successful by a committee of both faculty members and industry representatives.

“I’d love to share what the teams will be working on, but we leave the decisions and ideas entirely up to the students, who are, in my opinion, the best in the country,” says McVeigh. “I’m always excited to see what the teams come up with each year.”

“The CBID program gives our engineering students direct interaction with superb clinical faculty,” says Nick Jones, Ph.D., the Benjamin T. Rome Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins. “These students have the opportunity to take on significant design problems that address real needs in medicine.”

On the Web:

http://www.bme.jhu.edu/

http://cbid.bme.jhu.edu/index.php