CIMIT blog

March 1st CIMIT Forum: Solving Medical Challenges with Mechanical Engineering

The MIT 2.75 Precision Machine Design course collaborates with CIMIT to bring together physicians from Boston-area hospitals and MIT engineering students in developing new medical devices.  Physicians present their particular challenges then student teams work with them during the course of a semester to develop prototype solutions. The course has run since 2004, each year with a new cast of physicians and device challenges.

MODERATOR: Nevan Hanumara, MS
Graduate Instructor, MIT 2.75

 

 

Pressure Sensing Laparoscopic Grasper

CLINICIAN: Khashayar Vakili, MD,
Staff Surgeon, Children's Hospital Boston;
Instructor in Surgery, Harvard Medical School

 

 

STUDENT TEAM: Manuel Corral, Juan Diaz, Mattias Flander, Toomas Sepp, & Grace Teo

 

Design and Testing of a Three-Fingered Flexural Laparoscopic Grasper

CLINICIAN: Jennifer Rosen, MD Assistant Professor of Surgery and Assistant Professor, Division of Graduate Medical Sciences and Molecular Medicine, Boston University Medical Center

 

STUDENT TEAM: Yuanyu Chen, Audrey Maertens,, Harry O'Hanley, Matthew Rosario & John Walton

Learn more about this Forum and speakers.

 

WHEN: Tuesday, March 1, 2011, 4:00 to 6:00 PM

WHERE: Massachusetts General Hospital
Simches Research Center, Room 3110
185 Cambridge St., Boston

View directions.

 

 

Continuing Series: The February 15th CIMIT Forum: Solving Medical Challenges with Mechanical Engineering

The MIT 2.75 Precision Machine Design course collaborates with CIMIT to bring together physicians from Boston-area hospitals and MIT engineering students in developing new medical devices.  Physicians present their particular challenges then student teams work with them during the course of a semester to develop prototype solutions. The course has run since 2004, each year with a new cast of physicians and device challenges.

This series of forum continues on February 15th at the Brigham and Women's Hospital with presentations on engineering solutions to medical problems from a new set of clinicians and MIT students.  

MODERATOR: RAJIV GUPTA, MD, PHD Director, VCT Lab, Assistant Radiologist, Department of Radiology, and CIMIT Site Miner, Massachusetts General Hospital; Instructor in Radiology, Harvard Medical School

 

 

Renal Cooling Device for Minimally Invasive Surgery

CLINICIAN: NADEEM DHANANI, MD, MPH
Chief, Division of Urology, Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates; Instructor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

 

STUDENT TEAM: RACHEL BATZER, THOMAS CERVANTES, RAYMOND LEWIS, JULIA STARK & EDWARD SUMMERS

 

Home Sleep Monitoring - Somnus Sleep Shirt

CLINICIAN: MATT BIANCHI, MD, PhD
Instructor, Department of Neurology, Sleep Division, Massachusetts General Hospital; Assistant in Neurology, Harvard Medical School

STUDENT TEAM: CARSON DARLING, THOMAS LIPOMA & PABLO BELLO

 

Esophageal Atresia Nonoperative Correction

CLINICIAN: DAVID MOONEY, MD, MPH
Director, Trauma Program, Children's Hospital Boston; Assistant Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

 

STUDENT TEAM: TERESA GOMEZ, JAMES MEREDITH, PHILLIP NADEAU, AUSTIN OEHLERKING & IAN SMITH

 Learn more about this forum and speakers.

WHEN: Tuesday, February 15, 2011, 4:00 to 6:00 PM

WHERE: Brigham and Women's Hospital
Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular
Breakout Room (Room 1010)
70 Francis Street, Boston

View directions.

 

2011 CIMIT Prize for Primary Healthcare

The team presenting on the Somnus Sleep Shirt, Pablo Bello collaborating with Carson Darling and Thomas Lipoma, has been selected as one of ten finalists for the 2011 CIMIT Prize for Primary Healthcare.  The CIMIT Prize for Primary Healthcare is a national competition open to graduate and undergraduate engineering students and seeks ideas for technologic innovations with great potential to support and catalyze improved delivery of healthcare at the frontlines of medicine.  Congratulations to Pablo and his team and to all the other finalists.

The CIMIT Prize for Primary Healthcare is made possible through a generous gift from the Gelfand Family Charitable Trust.

 

Innovation Workshop on NeuroHealth: January 25-26, 2011

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeking new eyes.” Spoken by Marcel Proust, these words capture the spirit of the Wellcome Trust, a charitable organization dedicated to achieving “extraordinary improvements in human and animal health.” 

 I recently listened to John Williams, PhD, speak at a CIMIT Forum following the Innovation Workshop on Neurohealth.  Williams is the head of clinical activities and the head of neuroscience and mental health for the Trust, and he described multiple facets of the Trust’s mission.  Founded in the late 1930s, the Wellcome Trust currently distributes £720 million per year, and it supports 3,000 investigators in 50 different countries.  In addition to promoting cutting-edge translation research, the Trust seeks to bring advanced healthcare to developing countries by helping to create research facilities in India and working to establish institutions of higher education and research in Africa. 

VIDEO: John Williams 1/25/2011 Forum Presentation:

Learning about the Wellcome Trust convinced me that the role of private foundations in healthcare can extend beyond the traditional approach of funding research projects.  A private foundation can be an independent advocate in public conversations about medicine and can maintain a long-term perspective in the face of today’s heated political rhetoric.  Williams compared the Wellcome Trust to a “trusted brand” working to restore public confidence in healthcare.

The Trust allocates funds to support outstanding researchers, accelerate the application of research, and to explore medicine’s place in cultural and historical contexts.  By voicing its support of critically underserved areas of need, Wellcome Trust aligns its power to influence with its financial support.  In so doing, it accelerates discovery.

A key area of interest to the Wellcome Trust is in understanding the brain. These are areas of growing importance in the UK and America, as our societies welcome home a growing population of wounded warriors with serious and complex brain injuries.  And by increasing awareness of the devastating effects of brain injuries on the quality of life for patients and their families, Wellcome Trust reinforces its global reputation and brand.  What could be more humanistic than exploring these neurological areas of medicine?  I think Marcel Proust would applaud the Wellcome Trust for approaching these daunting medical problems through a host of innovative ways that will benefit our global community for the decades to come.   

-Written by Guest Blogger, Mark O'Connor, University of Massachusetts Medical School Student

All Videos from the 1/25 NeuroHealth Innovation Forum:

John Williams: Role of Foundations in the Promotion of Cross-Disciplinary Research

Joseph Martin: The Power of Academic Multi-Institutional Collaborations in Research

Warren Lammert

James Heywood

Ajay Verma

Related NeuroHealth Topics from Past CIMIT Forums (2010-2007):

Darin Dougherty: Neurotherapeutic Interventions in Psychiatry

Ed Boyden: Optical Brain Control: Analyzing and Engineering Normal and Pathological Neural Circuit Dynamics

Dan Hoch: Providing Real Care in a Virtual Environment: The Challenges and Potential of Clinical Practice in a Virtual World

Leigh Hochberg: Neural Interface System: Turning Thought into Action

Robert Ajemian: Brain-Machine Interface...

Van Wedeen: Mapping Brain Connectivity with Diffusion MRI

Marilyn Kraus: The Role of Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Traumatic Brain Injury

Javier Romero: New Perspectives in the Imaging of Carotid Artery Plaque

Michael Lev: Patient Selection for Novel Stroke Therapy Using Advance Imaging

David Hawkes: Integrating Models and Imaging to Guide Interventions 

CIMIT Summer Education Series 2007 Neurotechnology: Translating Basic Discoveries into Clinical Promise:

• Deciphering Cortical Electrophysiological Signals and their Applications for Brain-Body Interfaces
• Cortical Dynamics, Cortical Maps, and the Hemo-Neural Hypothesis: Implications for Neural Prostheses
• Brain-Computer Interfaces and Restorative Neurotechnology
• Decoding Cortical Electrophysiology for the Detection of Seizures
• Neural Control of Movement and Applications for Stroke Intervention
• Cortical Stimulation to Promote Stroke Recovery
• Functional MRI and Brain Plasticity
• Inducing and Imaging Brain Plasticity