Biodesign is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year through a series of events.

Also, new for our 10th year is the move of our
main course (Biodesign Innovation) into the
recently opened Knight Management Center -
the new home of the Stanford Graduate School
of Business. The course now occupies adjoining
rooms in KMC, a lecture hall for our guest
speakers and an accompanying room for project
teams to work on their concepts. We're already
seeing great things coming out of the teams by
using this space.

The Knight Management Center delivers the space needed to foster a collaborative atmosphere and a close-knit community with colleagues at the GSB and beyond.

On April 13 we hosted the next Biodesign Roundtable: Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship in Medical Devices: A Joint Conference between USPTO and Stanford University featuring David Kappos, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and USPTO's Chief Economist Stuart Graham. Audio of the sessions is now available on our website.

Intimal Solutions, a company founded by 2nd Year Fellows Fletcher Wilson and 2009-10 Fellow James Yu, was selected for the Grand Prize at the Berkeley's Lester Center for Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition for 2011. The Grand Prize was $20,000. They also won First Prize in the Life Sciences category, for another $5,000. Team members include Fletcher Wilson (2nd from left), Huzefa Neemuchwala (middle) and James Yu (not pictured). [Others in the picture are conference organizers.]

The Red Team recently received first prize at the UCSD Entrepreneurship Challenge for their company, Oculeve, whose product REVIVE, treats moderate to severe dry eye disease. Congratulations to [l to r] Garrett Smith, Brandon Felkins, Michael Ackermann and Victor McCray.

The White Team traveled to India in January as part of our new Global Exchange program where they visited health clinics with a specific focus on hearing loss detection and prevention. Pictured [l to r] are fellows Ravi Pamnani, Sid Sinha, Michael Schaller, and their host, Dr. Meenakshi Wadhera.

We are pleased to announce the selection for the 2011-2012 Biodesign Innovation Fellows: Dan Azagury, Buzz Bonneau, Jonathan Coe, David Gal, Swami Gnanashanmugam, Jeremy Koehler, Insoo Suh, Kate Walsh and Jasmine Zia. Congratulations to all!  See you in August.

We welcome our newest fellows to Biodesign: the Stanford-India Biodesign fellows are Avijit Bansal, Ayesha Chaudhary, Mridusmita Choudhury and Chinmay Deodhar for 2011. They are focusing on maternal and fetal health.

Anurag Mairal, Associate Director for SIB, presented to the NIH at the Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences. He spoke under the 'Framework Programs for Global Health Signature Innovations Initiative' about C-IDEA and Biodesign's role in developing low cost technologies for global needs. 

The 4th Annual SIB-sponsored Indian Medtech Summit was held in Delhi, India in December 2010. Speakers included Dr. Paul Yock, Dr. MK Bhan and Dr. Kasturirangan, famed space scientist. Over 200 people attended to discuss the future of medtech in India and how to create the necessary infrastructure to allow entrepreneurs to thrive. 

Applications are now open for the 2012 SIB fellowship.

We welcome our Singapore fellows to Biodesign: the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign fellows for 2011 are Henry Ho, Fiona Loke, Iris Tan, Anthony Tang.  The team recently completed their immersion in the new Byers Eye Institute at Stanford. They will continue in Ophthalmology when they return to Singapore in July.

Applications are now open for the 2012 SSB fellowship.

The Biodesign program will participate in an $8 million NIH Director's award to establish a global health consortium at Stanford geared to accelerating progress in diagnostics, drugs and devices. Michele Barry, the Senior Associate Dean of Global Health, is the Principal Investigator. This important effort is designed to encourage integration of the university's business, design, medicine and engineering programs to cultivate new collaborations and expand scientific progress in global health.  The new initiative, C-IDEA for Consortium for Innovation, Design, Evaluation and Action, will include opportunities for Stanford students to work on needs that are derived through our global partners.

This year we have launched a Global Biodesign course that features guest speakers discussing the pertinent issues of medtech innovation and entrepreneurship in several regions around the globe including Europe, East Asia, and India. The Spring Quarter course is also offered through our online partner, the Stanford Center for Professional Development, to those with an interest in global medtech outside Stanford.

Biodesign has just released a series of video tutorials on the regulatory environment in the U.S. Funded through a grant from the Kauffman Foundation, the videos feature a format where Paul Yock, Director of Biodesign, interviews two regulatory experts on what it takes to get a device through the FDA. View the videos on our ebiodesign.org website.

Matthew Callaghan, 3rd Year Fellow, and Uday Kumar, Global faculty, attended the Value-driven Engineering and U.S. Global Competitiveness Safe Haven Summit in Washington, D.C. Leaders from industry, academia and the public and private sectors are calling for the creation of a public-private coalition as part of a roadmap for the biomedical sector and to retain the United States' lead in medical device development and innovation. 

We hosted the Foundry team on March 1. David Cassak interviewed Allan Will, Hank Plain, Mark Deem and Hanson Gifford on the roles each played in the success of the Foundry and its start-ups. Stories of Ardian and Satiety were of great interest to the crowd of over 200 attendees. Audio is available on our website.

Our thanks to David Cassak for his outstanding job in hosting these interviews.

Ezekiel Emanuel was featured on May 10.  David Cassak interviewed Dr. Emanuel on his role in helping shape health care reform in the United States. Speaking to an audience of 150 at Vidalakis, Dr. Emanuel spoke on the elements of the reform bill and how they will impact the medtech community. Audio of the session will be available shortly.

We are happy to welcome Olympus as a Corporate Sponsor. They join Abbott Laboratories, Covidien, Edwards Life Sciences, Johnson & Johnson, Maquet, Medtronic, St. Jude Medical and Stryker in our corporate line-up.

Along with the Fellows' recent award (see Innovation Fellows article above) we've also seen others awarded for their biodesign efforts:

Three Biodesign projects have received 2011 Wallace H. Coulter Translational Research Grants. These include: A novel solution for temporary cardiac pacing, a portable respiratory acoustic monitoring device and a minimally invasive creation of autologous venous valves for the treatment of deep venous insufficiency.

Five medical technology teams from Stanford Biodesign have received a total of $125,000 through the Spectrum pilot grant program.   Included in this set are an image-guided device that prevents gallstone obstruction in patients who want to avoid surgery, a low-cost test for diagnosing diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and African sleeping sickness in underserved global regions, a novel approach to cardiac rhythm support that reduces complications associated with current technologies, an advanced system for treating atrial fibrillation and a minimally invasive treatment for chronic venous insufficiency.

Balram Bhargava, Executive Director of SIB in India, received an award of the Indian Science Congress Association at the 98th Indian Science Congress. He was one of 26 persons receiving an award, recipients of which included five Nobel Laureates.

National Geographic featured several low cost devices in an article entitled Big Ideas, Little Packages. One is the asthma device invented by one of our Mexico Fellows, Santiago Ocejo, and Eric Green and Barry Wohl. Their company, Respira, produces a spacer for inhalers that delivers asthma medication. 

Chris Eversull, a fellow from of our first year of fellows, received a Teaching Excellence award from the Stanford University School of Medicine. 

Steve Eichmann (alumni) and wife, Laurie proudly announce the arrival of Lila Jane on February 9, 2011.

The patent application on an Endoluminal Delivery System from the Biodesign Class of 2005 (that lead to establishment of Endoluminal Sciences) has been accepted by the USPTO.

Spiracur, the developer of an ultraportable and disposable negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) device, announced that it has been awarded the prestigious American Podiatric Medical Association's (APMA) Seal of Approval for its innovative SNaP® Wound Care System. Also, they announced that they have raised $35M in a new series of funding. Investors include New York-based Maverick Capital Ltd., Pinnacle Ventures, De Novo Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Leaf Venture Partners. In January they secured CE Mark approval for SNaP Wound Care System.

Insite Medical Technologies was awarded $500,000 through the government's SBIR program for small businesses. This Phase II SBIR is awarded for "improving the safety and efficacy of epidural anesthesia."

William Overall, 2002-3 Fellow, has joined HeartVista, a medtech startup in the bay area, as CTO.

Zachary Edmonds, 2007-08 Fellow, was promoted to Partner within the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.

Dorothea Koh, 2007-08 Fellow, has recently transitioned to Medtronic to be their International Senior Market Development Manager. She'll continue to reside in Singapore.

Former student, Juan-Pablo Mas, has joined Morgenthaler Ventures. In his email that he wrote to inform us of the move he said "The class and the process fundamentally changed what I wanted to do with my life, and I know I’m not the only student that can say that."

Santiago Ocejo, Global Fellow in 2006-07, has been invited to WHO in Geneva as a consultant to their initiative on Medical Devices for developing countries. He was invited to evaluate 84 technologies from all around the world that are applicable or designed for developing countries.

Boston Scientific Corp. has completed its acquisition of heart valve replacement device developer Sadra Medical Inc. Ken Martin, Fellow 04-05, is CEO of Sadra.

Driptech, the low cost drip irrigation system invented by Peter Frykman, former TA to the Biodesign Innovation class, recently revisited the Shanxi farmers in northern China after one planting season of using Driptech. They conducted an extensive survey and found that on average, farmers were using 30-50% less water and increasing their yields by 30%. 

Ross & Ranya Venook announce the birth of Sean Takaki Venook on May 1, 2011.