The Center for Biomedical and Interventional Technology (CBIT) recently hosted another Project Pitch Night at the School of Management (SOM). The event was held to partner SOM students with projects that were awarded Stage 1 funding under a new pilot award mechanism created by CBIT and the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI).
Ten faculty, clinicians and scientists from the Yale School of Medicine, Yale-New Haven Hospital and the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science presented their ideas to an audience of over 60 who attended the event.
CBIT received 40 Stage 1 proposals under the new mechanism, 17 of which were awarded $1,500 to further develop their projects and may also compete for four $50,000 Stage 2 awards. The awards are to be used to fund prototype activity, animal and clinical evaluation, and create a strong business strategy for commercialization of biomedical technologies. The recent Pitch Night was held to elicit participation from SOM students in the hopes of strengthening the pilot proposals from a business perspective.
“We were amazed at the response we received, in terms of both the quantity and the quality of the proposals,” said Jean Zheng, Ph.D, engineering director of CBIT, which is YCCI’s newest emerging core.
CBIT provides mentorship and guidance to help innovative ideas from faculty, clinicians and students from medicine and engineering move into the market where they can widely benefit patients. Presenters had just four minutes to present their proposals and spark the interest of SOM students. Some of the teams are already in the process of applying for patents for their devices; all of them stressed that their projects would greatly benefit by the infusion of business expertise to conduct market analyses, develop business models, and develop commercialization strategies. The proposals that were presented included:
- A safer, more reliable “smart shunt” for patients with hydrocephalus that would be a vast improvement over the shunts currently in use. (Dr. Ryan Grant on behalf of Dr. Michael Diluna)
- A simulation platform to train clinicians on using external pacemakers for high risk cardiovascular events. (Dr. Stephanie Sudikoff)
- A fast, accurate, and cost effective biosensor for glucose monitoring for the hospital/clinic and home setting. (Emily Kinser on behalf of Dr. Themis Kyriakides)
- A device to remove inferior vena cava filters in patients with deep vein thrombosis. (Dr. Cassius Chaar)
- A nanotechnology platform for drug delivery to the brain. (Dr. Jianbing Zhou)
- An antiviral nanotechnology for the prevention of herpes simplex virus. (Elias Quijano and Linda Fong on behalf of Dr. Mark Saltzman)
- A molecular mapping and delivery mechanism for cardiac therapeutics. (Dr. Al Sinusas)
- A device to guide chest tube placement. (Dr. Juan Pablo Arroyo and Andres Ornelas Vargas on behalf of Dr. Steven Tommasini)
- A device for CPR training that provides real-time qualitative and quantitative feedback to users. (Dr. Melissa Langhan on behalf of Dr. Marc Auerbach)
The deadline for Stage 2 proposals for the CBIT pilot awards is June 19, 2015. Stage 1 approval is not required for the next round of proposals. For more information and to download the pilot RFA and application, visit http://ycci.yale.edu/researchers/programs/index.aspx.