Congratulations to our 11-12 Biodesign Innovation Fellows who are graduating
this year. The ten are Dan Azagury, Buzz Bonneau, David Camarillo, Jonathan
Coe, David Gal, Swami Gnanashanmugam, Jeremy Koehler, Insoo Suh, Kate
Walsh and Jasmine Zia. They graduate on June 12.

The 2011-12 Red Team entered and won a
number of competitions this year with their device to treat kidney stones: they won 1st prize in the Tulane Business Plan competition (see photo); 1st prize in the Stanford BASES E-Challenge and 2nd place in the BME Idea competition.

The 2011-12 White Team have been accepted into StartX - an incubator started by Stanford students. The incubator comes with support in terms of mentorship, space and a small amount of funding.

We're pleased to announce the next Biodesign Innovation Fellows for 2012-13: Tahel Altman, Rush Bartlett, Emma Essock-Burns, John Paderi, Vijaykumar Rajasekhar, Richard Rink, Kathryn Rosenbluth, Ivan Tzvetanov, Ryan Van Wert and Justin Williams.

Our 2012 fellows Siraj S Bagwan, Jagdish Chaturvedi, Siddhartha Joshi and Jonathan D. Pillai are busy wrapping up their projects from Phase I (6 months at Stanford.) On July 1 they report back to SIB India to begin their next phase.

Two teams from the Stanford-India Biodesign program got into the final round for the United States - India Science and Technology Endowment Fund grants. These grants, up to $500k each, must include participants from both the US and India.

Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State for the US, visited India this month and was introduced to the Stanford-India Biodesign program and met Balram Bhargava (Exec Director, SIB), Ayesha Chaudhary, Nish Chasmawala and Nitin Sisodia (fellows, SIB). Read the remarks from the event.

Stanford-India Biodesign has executed an exclusive worldwide license to commercialize the FI technology between BCIL (the Indian government Dept of Biotechnology's technology transfer organization) and Consure Medical Private Limited. The license will serve as a template for future products emanating from the SIB collaboration. Consure is founded on a device that was invented in the first year of the SIB program.

Our own SIB Fellows, Siddhartha Joshi and Jagdish Chaturvedi, are mentioned on the Huffington Post blogsite. Ayesha Chaudhary and Avijit Bansal wrote an article on SIB for Frost & Sullivan.

Chinmay Deodhar and Pushkar Ingale (SIB Fellows) conducted a one-day biodesign workshop the Maharasthtra Institute of Technology's school of design for their Design for Entrepreneurship class.

Our 5th Annual Indian Medtech Summit was held in December 2011 with great fanfare. The NIH partnered with our program to hold their own grand challenge for low cost innovation in medtech. Francis Collins, pictured left, Director of the NIH, was a featured speaker.

Biodesign has received a $120,000 grant from Singapore to further its textbook work - the money will support additional 'sourcebook' chapters that cover Singapore, India and China plus case studies in those areas.

Our 2012 fellows: Tze Kiat Ng, Justin Phoon, Luke Tay, Pearline Teo are finishing the six month phase I of their fellowship. On July 1 they return to Singapore to complete Phase II.

The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) together with the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign (SSB) held a join event featuring two guest speakers from Abbott on the effective translation of scientific innovation into clinical practice.

Our first graduation (pictured right) was held in Singapore in December with all faculty in attendance. Congrats to the graduates!

We were fortunate to host two visiting global faculty this year so far: Dr. PVM Rao from IIT Delhi spent 7 weeks in Biodesign; Dr. Igor Pivovarov from Moscow State University spent most of winter and spring quarters here. Both professors hope to integrate Biodesign teaching into their curriculum.

Our Global Exchange Program, funded through a collaborative campus-wide NIH grant called C-IDEA, has funded three new projects that features low-cost medical technology innovation:

• Low-cost Point-of-Care Device for Early Detection of Infection
• An implantable device for sustained Tuberculosis therapy
• Cell Phone SMS Messages to Target Diabetic Medication Noncompliance

Through C-IDEA we have also selected and funded our Global Student teams - congrats to the India team: Eric Chehab, Carl Dambkowski, Swami Gnanashanmugam, and Abhinav Ramani and the China team: George Kimutai Korir, Mengli Yang, Sebastian Echegaray, Ruchi Dana and Wang Xi. Each team will travel this summer to do needs finding in those countries.

This year for the first time, we partnered with the School of Engineering to offer a China Internship. Two students will be heading to China this summer to intern in Medical Device companies there.

We have received two grants from the Freeman Spogli Institute - one is supporting research into barriers to commercialization for Indian medtech; the second is to study medical device technology infusion into rural China.

Stanford School of Medicine, Biodesign and the FDA have signed an MOU. The agreement lays the groundwork for the FDA and Stanford to collaborate on a number of initiatives, including educational outreach, cross-training of scientific personnel, and the development of new biostatistical methods for more accurately evaluating the safety of emerging medical technologies.

The paper Medical Device Innovators and the 510(k) Regulatory Pathway: Implications of a Survey-Based Assessment of Industry Experience by Jan Pietzsch, John Linehan and Marta Zanchi was published in the Journal of Medical Devices.

President John Hennessy of Stanford spoke at our 11th annual Fogarty Lecture. His talk on Promoting & Sustaining Innovation: Lessons from Stanford and Silicon Valley is available for viewing on our website.

Our four events for 2012 were a huge success. We featured Alex Gorsky, CEO Johnson & Johnson, Michael Kaschke, President and CEO Carl Zeiss AG, Robert, Tim and Scott Fischell, Father and Son Medtech Innovators and Marty Leon Interventional Cardiologist; Founder, TCT. Audio of the events is available on our website.

Todd Brinton, Biodesign's Fellowship director, has been promoted to Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine. Congratulations, Dr. Brinton.

Welcome to Linda Lucien, Biodesign's newest staff member - great to have her on the team.

Welcome also to Intellectual Ventures and Knobbe Martens, our newest Sponsors of the Biodesign Program.

Paul Yock was invited to speak to the Stanford University Board of Trustees on aspects of entrepreneurship as they are taught at Stanford through the Biodesign program. Read about it in Stanford News.

Congratulations to Dr. Paul Yock, Director of Biodesign, Billy Loo, Asst. Prof, Radiation Ocology and Peter Maxim, Asst. Prof Radiation Ocology for their recent Coulter Grant Award for Pluridirectional High-Energy Agile Scanning Electron Radiotherapy (PHASER.) The grant is for $50,000.

Congratulations to Tom Fogarty, advising faculty and mentor to the Biodesign program, on his recent induction into the National Academy of Inventors Fellowship, a newly established Fellow membership category of the NAI. Dr. Fogarty is the first NAI Fellow.

Congratulations to several of our Advisory faculty who recently received awards: Scott Delp, the John W. Gardner Visionary Award, Pathways Hospice Foundation; Geoff Gurtner, Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic and Translational Research, Plastic Surgery Foundation; Michael Longaker, Flance-Karl Award, American Surgical Association.

Ashish Nimgaonkar, Fellow 2010-11, has received a $25,000 Spectrum Award for his project, " A Minimally Invasive Method of Treating Patients with Refractory Ascites."

OneBreath, Matthew Callaghan's ventilator device, took 2nd Place at the Purdue University Life Sciences Business Plan Competition. The prize is $15,000. Matt was a 2008-09 Fellow who continues to take his three projects forward.

HeartVista, a company started by William Overall, 2002-03 Fellow, received Series A funding. Joelle Barral, 20010-11 Fellow is also part of the company.

Garrett Smith, Biodesign Fellow 2010-11, recently founded a new company based on his PhD work from UC San Diego. The company, Nasseo, Inc, has a product that reduces dental implant failures. His device was also entered in the UCSD Entrepreneur Challenge Executive Summary Competition and won first prize: $2500 cash, $5,000 legal. Garrett is also currently on a Whitaker Fellowship to help BioInnovate Ireland, a program that Biodesign supported through its inception.

Clear Ear, a company started out of the 2010-11 Biodesign class, has received funding from a Biodesign internal grant (through C-IDEA's Global Exchange Program), from StartX and from the Fogarty Institute.

Simpirica, company developed from 2006-7 technology of the Biodesign class and developer of minimally invasive, flexion-restricting stabilization devices for the spine, has announced US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to begin an investigational device exemption (IDE) pivotal trial.

Olivia Azagury was born to Dan Azagury and his wife on October 23, 2011.