NCIIA Honors Top Collegiate Biomedical Enginee...( Three student teams with high-tech di...)

Three student teams with high-tech diagnostic and surgical devices recognized at National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance's annual BMEidea awards at MD&M East Conference in New York

NEW YORK, June 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Today three collegiate biomedical engineering teams received cash prizes from the NCIIA. The winners in the annual Biomedical Engineering Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Award (BMEidea) Competition--a national competition celebrating student innovation--were honored for their outstanding work in the field, during the Medical Design Excellence Awards Ceremony at the Medical Design and Manufacturing (MD&M) East Conference at the Jacob Javits Center in New York.

The annual BMEidea Competition, now in its fifth year, is open to collegiate teams from NCIIA member institutions across the United States. The first prize--a cash award of $10,000--was awarded to Lab-on-a-Stick from Stanford University. This team has developed a simple, affordable method for diagnosing illnesses with a disposable "stick" pre-treated with assorted protein receptors. Lab-on-a-Stick, when used in conjunction with a portable handheld device, can help medical practitioners identify diseases. This invention will be especially useful in remote areas where access to labs is not always feasible.

The $2,500 second-place prize was awarded to the SurgiSIL, a laparoscopic tool developed by the Single Port Solutions team at the University of Cincinnati. The SurgiSIL allows medical practitioners to consolidate all laparoscopic instruments into a single tool that can make one simple incision in the navel, reducing the risk of trauma; cutting down recovery time; and resulting in less scarring.

Third prize, $1,000 in cash, was given to the Brown University team working on a biosensor to detect vitamin D levels. Although current research suggests that vit
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