The CIMIT Prize for Primary Healthcare is a national competition open to graduate and undergraduate engineering students. One goal of the CIMIT Prize is to challenge engineers, early in their careers, to consider healthcare as a career option. The competition seeks ideas for technologic innovations with great potential to support and catalyze improved delivery of healthcare at the frontlines of medicine.
CIMIT solicited pre-proposals in the fall of 2009 for this competition. Ten finalists were chosen in February and awarded $10,000 to develop a final proposal. CIMIT is pleased to announce the 2010 Prize winners.
Top prize and $150,000 has been awarded to the project, "Rapid Multiplexed Detection of Pathogens with DNA Nanobarcodes". Mark R. Hartman, a Cornell University PhD candidate in Biological and Environmental Engineering will lead the team chosen to receive the $150,000 top honor. The novel technology offers the promise of a one-step quick point-of-care test for an array of pathogens possibly responsible for pharyngitis. This diagnostic tool would allow timely and accurate triage of sore throats.
Second place and $100,000 is awarded to another Cornell-based, student-led team for their project that uses continuous ultrasound therapy for more efficient help in managing chronic pain. Beyond the initial use of pain-management drugs, patients with chronic conditions such as osteoarthritis and sciatica are most often referred for periodic short therapy treatments with ultrasound. The $100,000 award will support clinical evaluation of “Wearable Low-Intensity Ultrasound Therapy". Led by George K. Lewis, Jr., a doctoral candidate in Biomedical Engineering, the team's hypothesis is that this wearable technology, which would deliver low-power ultrasound to promote pain relief and even healing, could be dispensed as a disposable device at the front lines of primary care, where diagnosis warrants.
And, recognized with the $50,000 third prize is "Cardiocam: Technology for Non-Contact Multi-Parameter Physiologic Measurements". Led by Ming-Zher Poh, a MIT-HST doctoral candidate in the Media Lab, this project has pilot data showing that they can capture some physiologic data purely by image analysis over the internet from a web-cam looking at a patient's face. Already, the team has captured heart-rate with great accuracy, during ordinary video-conferencing remote interactions. Respiratory rate and blood oxygenation are their next two goals. This approach correlates well with the evolving paradigm of offering more primary care through outreach and by delivering care at the right time, in the right place and if possible, without requiring office visits.
Read the full announcement posted on cimit.org.
Also, join our CIMIT Prize email list to receive notice of future Request for Applications (next RFA will be in late Fall of 2010).
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