CHOC CLINICIANS PITCH IDEAS FOR NEW MEDICAL DEVICES TO UCI STUDENTS
On Feb 2, 2021 CHOC reported, In the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at CHOC, most pre-term babies are not able to take all their food through a bottle until they’re closer to term. They also must rely on a tube connected to a feeding pump.
In hospitals that have a centralized room where technicians prepare feedings for the nurse, the feeding is often delivered pre-drawn up in a syringe since it is unknown if all of the feeding will be given via the tube or if the baby will be able to take some by mouth.
If the baby is alert enough to eat by mouth, the nurse would need to transfer some of the feeding from the syringe to a bottle. If the baby did not take the full volume in the bottle, the nurse would need to draw any remaining milk back into the syringe to be able to deliver it via a tube.
Because of all these steps, there’s a risk of contamination, misadministration (giving the wrong milk to the wrong baby) and a loss of nutrients caused by milk adhering to the side of the containers.
Wouldn’t it be great to create a device that could solve those concerns and make feeding premature infants safer and more efficient?
That was the concept presented by Michelle Roberts, a registered nurse and lactation consultant, to UCI biomedical engineering graduates at the annual UCI BioENGINE Reverse Project Pitch Night.
Undergraduates students in the BioENGINE Program (Bioengineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship) obtain hands-on experience in the technical and business development aspects of biomedical engineering as they work in teams to further develop med-tech startups into marketable products.
Roberts was among several CHOC associates who gave two-minute presentations at the Fall 2020 Reverse Project Pitch Night, held online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kicking off the 90-minute session, which featured some 30 presenters, was Dr. Terence Sanger, a physician, engineer and computational neuroscientist who joined CHOC in January 2020 as its vice president of research and first chief scientific officer.
BioENGINE partners with the UCI School of Medicine, the Henry Samueli School of Engineering, the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, the Beckman Laser Institute, UCI Athletics and UCI Applied Innovation.
At Reverse Project Pitch Night, physicians, scientists, clinicians and industry representatives describe their concepts for new medical devices. Students are matched with projects that interest them and are mentored by the presenters to help develop healthcare solutions.
“Physicians and engineers need to work together,” said Dr. Sanger, a child neurologist who specializes in movement disorders. “The goal is to identify an important problem, marry it to a piece of technology, and create a device in a way that will have an impact. Different knowledges have to be brought together, and personally I find that very inspiring.”
You can read the full press release here.
