New for 2010 – Biodesign Roundtable! In an attempt to bring together the medtech community to discuss significant and topical issues in medtech, Biodesign and the School of Business have partnered to begin a series of Roundtables. Our first was held on February 23, 2010 and was a featured event of EWeek (Stanford’s Entrepreneurship week). Alan Garber addressed the issue of “How Comparative Effectiveness will Impact Medical Device Innovation” and then Ross Jaffe led an esteemed panel in a lively discussion of the topic.  

We plan additional Roundtables in the future. If you have a topic you'd like to see addressed, contact biodesign@stanford.edu.

The 2009-10 Biodesign Innovation Fellows Pedram Afshar, Ellis Garai, Partha Ray, Sandra Ruggles, Akhilesh Sista, Aravind Swaminathan, Fletcher Wilson and Rhunjay (James) Yu have completed their bootcamp and immersion and have started developing concepts. Both teams (the red and white) have been awarded E-Team grants from NCIIA for their projects. A great way to get things going quickly.

Matt Callaghan, 2nd year fellow, recently received an E-Team grant for his low-cost ventilator project. Greg Magee, 2nd year fellow and his team (Erika Palmer, Jake Brenner and Ruey Peh), also received an E-Team grant for their HemoRx project.

We are pleased to announce the selection of the 2010-2011 Biodesign Innovation Fellows: Michael Ackermann, Joelle Barral, Brandon Felkins, Victor McCray, Ravi Pamnani, Michael Schaller, Sidhartha Sinha, and Garrett Smith. They will join the program in August, 2010.

We kicked off our Workbench season with Dr. Robert Langer (pictured right), Professor of MIT and one of the most prolific inventors of his time. David Cassak, of Windhover Information, interviewed Dr. Langer who described his career and the many companies he has started from his research.

Next we hosted Lonnie Smith of Intuitive Surgical to an enthusiastic crowd.

You can listen to both of those interviews on our past innovator’s webpage.

Sign up now for the next in our series: Rich Meelia, CEO of Covidien, will be with us for our third and final workbench on April 21.

The Experien Group has joined as a Community Partner. Terumo Medical and Olympus have joined as corporate partners. See the complete list of our supporters at the end of this newsletter. 

Chris Shen has joined the faculty of Biodesign as Executive Director for the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign program. In this capacity Chris will oversee the development of this joint program and will supervise the Singapore fellows while they are here and continue to mentor them while they are in Singapore.  

We are pleased to report that our textbook, Biodesign: The Process of Innovating Medical Technologies has gone into its second printing, having sold over 1900 copies. Thanks goes out to all who helped with the textbook. Read more about the textbook on our website.

We are pleased to announce the creation of a new partnership with Singapore under the auspices of Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and Economic Development Board (EDB). Read the press release.

Under the partnership we are initiating a Singapore-Stanford Biodesign fellowship and develop courses at Singaporean universities. The first set of fellows will begin January 2011. Applications are now open for this fellowship for Singaporean citizens – see our Singapore website for further information.

We’re currently hosting our 3rd year of Stanford-India Biodesign fellows, pictured left, who will be here for the first half of 2010 before returning to India to complete their fellowships at AIIMS.

Pictured from left to right are Nitin Sisodia, Dr. Gita Handa, Pushkar Ingale and Ritu Kamal.

We’re also currently advertising for the 2011 SIB fellows. See our website for further information.  

Avi Roop and Kevin Chao, 2008-2010 Innovation Fellows, were awarded 3rd Prize in the Venture Challenge hosted by the Entrepreneurial Management Center, San Diego State University for their Miret Surgical device. They received an award of $1500.

Nish Chasmawala, 2008 Stanford-India Biodesign Fellow, was awarded the India TR35, MIT's award for the top 35 innovators under 35 in India.

Driptech, the business started by Peter Frykman, a Biodesign Teaching Assistant in 2007, was selected as one of Businessweek's Most Intriguing New Startups for 2009.

The Jaipur Knee, designed by students in Tom Andriacchi's class as the Biodesign-sponsored project, has been selected as one of Time Magazine's Top 50 Inventions for 2009 and by CNN as one of the top 10 inventions for 2009. Congratulations to the student team: Ayo Roberts, Joel Sadler, Angelo Szychowski, Eric Thorsell and Ellis Garai (2009 Biodesign Fellow).

We congratulate Srinivas Jaggu, a 2008-2010 Stanford-India Biodesign fellow, who was chosen as one of the first TEDIndia Fellows for 2009.

Tom Krummel, the Emile Holman Professor and chair of the Department of Surgery and Co-Director of the Biodesign Program, was recently installed as the President of the Halsted Society for the 2010 Society year. This is one of the oldest and most prestigious surgical organizations in the country whose purpose is to further the scientific principles and ideals; to encourage exchange of ideas, free and informal discussion, and a spirit of sociability and good fellowship among its members.

Scott Delp, PhD, Professor of Bioengineering and of Mechanical Engineering, and, by courtesy, or Orthopaedic Surgery, co-director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Computation and Advisory Faculty in the Biodesign Program, has been appointed as an initial holder of the James H. Clark Professorship in the School of Engineering. The James H. Clark Fund for Bioengineering was established in 1999 to support bioengineering faculty generally, and was previously used to support new faculty in starting up their labs.

Embrace, the Stanford student started company that manufactures low-cost infant warming blankets, has been named one of 25 Community Service Honorees by Time Magazine.

InSite Medical Technologies, maker of a medical device used to safely deliver epidural anesthesia during childbirth and other procedures started by the 2007 Fellows, has just brought in $1.06 million of an expected $2.08 million round of equity, according to a filing with the SEC.

Erika Palmer, 2008-09 Fellow, welcomed Oliver Alan Palmer into the world on October 15.

The Alumni Fellows have created an alumni organization and now have a blog and website: http://biodesignalumni.com/  

A special thanks to our many supporters: