The National Institutes of Health announced the winners of the 11th annual Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) challenge with prizes totaling $130,000. NIH and VentureWell named nine winning teams and five honorable mentions that designed technology solutions for unmet healthcare needs.
The DEBUT Challenge, initiated and led by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), was also supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), all part of the NIH, along with VentureWell, a nonprofit higher education network that supports science and technology. Innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education. The awards will be presented during the annual conference of the Society for Biomedical Engineering, October 12-15, 2022.
“With each new DEBUT challenge, I am inspired by the creativity and ingenuity of young engineers across the country,” said Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D., director of NIBIB. “From projects addressing bias in medical devices to bringing affordable, easy-to-use testing to underserved communities, student design projects are helping our community design the future of health.”
The winning diagnostic projects improve skin color biases in blood oxygen saturation testing, more accurately identify group B streptococci, measure cervical stiffness as a warning of preterm birth, improve electrocardiograms (EKGs) for children, and diagnose tuberculosis more quickly and cheaply than traditional methods. Therapeutic projects include a device to protect the brain after surgery, physiotherapy guided by artificial intelligence, a male contraceptive and a spoon to help patients with Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor.
“Supporting the next generation of researchers is essential to the sustainability and continued progress of scientific discovery,” said Maureen M. Goodenow, Ph.D., director of OAR. “The NIH Office of AIDS Research is pleased to support the DEBUT Challenge to foster the spirit of research and innovation that fueled this year’s submissions, including FEW:TB. Developed by students at Northwestern University, this creative diagnostic approach could improve testing for tuberculosis, a leading cause of death among people with HIV, especially in low-resource settings.”
DEBUT received 73 applications from 43 universities in 19 states and four countries (United States, Canada, China and Syria), involving a total of 456 students this year.
The winning projects are the following:
NIBIB “Steven H. Krosnick” First Prize ($20,000): EquinOx, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
EquinOx attempts to mitigate the bias that most pulse oximeters exhibit by not taking into account patients’ different skin tones. By using new hardware that measures both skin tone and raw pulse oximeter data with a newly developed algorithm, EquinOx can better estimate blood oxygen saturation.
NIBIB Second Prize ($15,000): Ampliphage, Stanford University, Stanford, California
Ampliphage is an affordable, easy-to-use diagnostic tool that can detect group B strep in low-resource settings. At 3% the cost of current tests, it can be used in areas that cannot afford more expensive tests and help decrease child mortality rates around the world.
NIBIB Third Prize ($10,000): CERV, Columbia University, New York
CERV is designed to monitor the risk of preterm birth by quantifying cervical stiffness without the use of a speculum in low-resource clinical settings.
NIH OAR HIV/AIDS Award ($15,000): Automated Point-of-Care Staining for Tuberculosis Diagnosis (FEW: TB), Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
FEW: TB can perform microscopy staining of acid-fast sputum to identify TB. It uses components from a standard 3D printer to reproduce staining procedures in a timely and consistent manner, offering low- and middle-income countries a faster, cheaper way to test for a leading cause of death among people with HIV.
NIMHD Award for Low Resource Settings ($15,000): HappyHeart, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
This HappyHeart is an innovative and cost-effective 3D printed approach to pediatric diagnostic electrocardiographs in clinical settings that will increase comfort, be easier to use, and reduce costs.
NCI Cancer Award ($15,000): Neurosafe, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
The Neurosafe skull fixation device provides the structural support needed to protect the vulnerable brain post-operatively while incorporating movement to accommodate brain swelling and subsequent shrinkage.
National Center for Medical Rehabilitation, NICHD Assistive/Rehabilitative Technologies Award ($15,000): Yoomi, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Yoomi is an AI-powered physical therapy platform that uses computer vision to provide patients with real-time feedback on their exercise form and provides healthcare professionals with exercise data and insights to optimize treatment.
VentureWell Venture Award ($15,000): EMIT Male Contraceptive: Arizona State University, Tempe
EMIT is a minimally invasive alternative male contraceptive. It uses an injectable hydrogel and a chemical deactivator compound system that provides a completely reversible double barrier to the movement of sperm beyond the vas deferens.
VentureWell Design Excellence Award ($5,000): SteadiSpoon, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and University of Oklahoma, Norman
SteadiSpoon is an affordable, self-stabilizing feeding device that helps patients with Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor regain agency and autonomy in their lives for nearly a quarter of the cost of market-leading motorized solutions.
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About the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB): NIBIB’s mission is to design the future of health by leading the development and accelerating the application of biomedical technologies. The Institute is committed to integrating engineering and physical sciences with biology and medicine to advance our understanding of diseases and their prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment. NIBIB supports research and development of emerging technologies within its internal laboratories and through grants, collaborations and training. More information is available on the NIBIB website.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): The National Institutes of Health, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NIH is the primary federal agency that conducts and supports basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures of common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov.
