New York University, $25,000

University of Missouri, $25,000

Pisces Technologies is developing a new method to raise sustainable shrimp at high yields on low value farmland without discharging pollutants to the environment. The technology provides a significant improvement on the reliability of production relative to imported shrimp, is of equivalent quality to wild catch, and can be produced at a competitive price.

Yale University, $25,000

PremieBreathe is an affordable, mobile breathing aid to provide life-saving respiratory support for premature infants in low-resource settings.

http://www.premiebreathe.com

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2014 BMEIdea Second Prize Winner, winning $5,000

Stage 1 & 2 E-Team grantee, $25,000

A new drug delivery technology that will simplify drug reconstitution between a lyophilized (freeze-dried) drug and water at the point of care. It is designed for patients who regularly inject lyophilized drugs such as hCG, insulin or HGH.

http://www.recontherapeutics.com

The team members:

Christopher Lee, 24, Ann Arbor, MI;
John Lewandowski, 24, Shaker Heights, OH;
Ben Maimon, 24, Westfield,. NJ;
Babak Movassaghi, 39, Dusseldorf, Germany;
Ho-Jun Suk, 28, Incheon, South Korea

The device:

LyoKit is a drug delivery technology designed for patients who regularly inject lyophilized drugs such as hCG, insulin or HGH. This technology simplifies drug reconstitution between a lyophilized (freeze-dried) drug and sterile solvent. The LyoKit device couples a standard off-the-shelf syringe with an external pressurized water chamber, resulting in a simple one-step reconstitution process. The device is customizable to a full range of biologics and can be rapidly adopted to market with minimal regulatory concerns.

The problem:

The gold standard for at-home, self-injection of large biologics involves providing a patient with a vial of drug and a vial of injection solvent. The process of preparing a dose involves 5-10 steps, and necessitates the use of 2-4 syringes and needles, transfer vials, and patient calculations leading to frequent mistakes and decreased compliance. In addition, unused doses require immediate refrigeration, which is extremely inconvenient.

The solution:

Recon Therapeutics has developed a new drug delivery technology that simplifies drug reconstitution between a lyophilized drug and sterile solvent at the point of care. The Lyokit Drug Reconstitution System differentiates itself by being highly intuitive to use, reconstituting biologics with simple one finger actuation. In addition, the reconstitution process occurs using an external pressurized chamber, enabling reconstitution of biologics with a wide spectrum of solubility profiles. Lastly, the Lyokit is an all-inclusive kit that encompasses injection site sterility, needle safety, and disposal all in one embodiment. Coupled with our business model of integrating the system with off-the-shelf syringes, Recon can provide a cost advantage of up to 60% to both the customer and pharmacy, enabling Recon Therapeutics to access an annual market for drug reconstitution technologies exceeding $1.8 billion.

Challenges encountered:

According to team member Christopher Lee, “As a team we have faced many challenges in distilling our regulatory pathway and getting in touch with the correct experts in this domain. In addition, we also initially struggled to determine what type of products that require reconstitution should be targeted with our device first.”

Accomplishments and progress to date:

Recon Therapeutics has incorporated as a LLC and filed a full utility patent application. They have completed a first pass design freeze and developed a beta prototype, which has been designed for manufacturing. Critically, Recon has secured additional funding as an MIT Global IDEAS winner and Harvard Innovation Labs Dean’s Health Life Science Challenge Finalist. They have also established additional working relationships with sterilization facilities, compounding pharmacies, and injection molders. Through Men’s Health Boston, the team spoke with patients and nurses, and was able to perform several rounds of usability and human factors studies.

Their tip for other student innovators:

Always try to do something more with a student project, don’t let it just sit on a shelf.

New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, $25,000

This team is developing a reduced cost heliostat aimed at energy companies that are moving away from coal-produced electricity. The heliostat will implement New Mexico Tech-patented water-ballast technology that makes the heliostat array cost-effective for large power plants. The technology produces heat that can be used to power existing steam turbine hardware, minimizing the required changes in current power plan hardware.

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, $25,000

Impacted fetal head is a serious complication seen in as many as 25% of all Cesarean section deliveries, yet there is currently no optimal device that mitigates this issue. The Safe-C Pump is a user friendly device that will safely and quickly disimpact the fetal head during Cesarean section while improving maternal and fetal outcomes.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, $20,000

Innovations in almost every field of development engineering, including clean water, improved cook stoves, and solar lanterns suffer from inadequate methods of data collection and user feedback. Response bias, lack of data granularity, and prohibitive expenses make life harder than it needs to be. Today’s sensor and mobile phone technology can significantly reduce both the time and money required to gain the critical field data necessary for both monitoring and evaluation of new technologies. Sensen is a platform technology that can be used in emerging markets to allow organizations to seamlessly gather sensor-based data on the use and impact of their interventions.

University of Oklahoma, $19,200

A tool built to prevent weather-related accidents within the trucking industry by automatically alerting dispatchers of weather conditions that might adversely affect the trucks they are responsible for.

University of Utah, $25,000

This E-Team is developing a portable, point-of-use, solar-powered water purification device to provide clean water in rural areas or wherever access to clean water is limited. The technology utilizes the sun to oxidize bacteria, viruses and protozoa in surface water and can use low voltage electricity from lightweight, durable solar panels when lighting conditions are less than ideal.

Johns Hopkins University, $25,000

Each year, hundreds of thousands of patients undergo surgeries in which arteries and veins are joined together. These surgeries save lives, yet often result in failure because the vessels break down in the immediate post-surgical period. Sonavex’s EchoSure detects post-operative complications as they arise, giving surgeons the chance to take corrective action promptly.

http://www.sonavex.com

Stanford University, $25,000

Buildings consume enormous amounts of energy, and architects waste billions of dollars re-working designs to create energy efficient buildings. Spectrum provides enterprise software for the architecture industry that seamlessly integrates building information modeling with sustainability analysis.

Johns Hopkins University, $20,000

Gastric bypass surgery leads to the remission of type II diabetes in up to 98% of patients, but it is invasive. By using key insights from surgery, this team is developing a less invasive method that modulates the GI tract and leads to improvements in blood glucose control and reduces long term complications of the disease.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, $20,000

Long-term forms of contraception are generally preferred by both governments and women around the world, but they require more advanced training to administer, making it a challenge to provide access to them in low-resource settings. This team is developing an assistive medical device that dramatically reduces the training required to administer subcutaneous contraceptive implants. The device ensures accurate insertion of the contraceptive implant and minimizes the risk of incorrect placement.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, $20,000

Tactile Caliper is a geometric instrument for students with blindness that will measure and draw straight lines with precision. The device is increasing the accessibility of STEM in K-12 grades, allowing blind students be on par with their sighted peers.

Pennsylvania State University, $25,000

This team is developing low-cost urinary tract infection diagnostic test strips that can be manufactured for less than two cents each by using a regular inkjet printer.

Northwestern University, $25,000

UroProx is an innovative stent that employs a proximity sensing system to help surgeons more precisely localize and avoid the ureter during surgery.

UroProx homepage

University of Houston, $20,000

WAVVE Stream is developing material product enhancements for industrial water filtration applications in various industries. WAVVE Stream technologies are patented materials in both a coating and resin-bead application form that were created to be easily integrated onto existing products for contaminant removal and biofilm control. They are applicable on a variety of surface areas and systems including filter membranes, filter systems, glass, and ceramic surfaces, among others.

Arizona State University at the Tempe Campus, $20,000

Clinical treatment of bacterial infections, especially in acute cases of sepsis and urinary tract infections, requires antibiotic susceptibility tests. These tests diagnose antibiotic resistance bacteria to determine the appropriate antibiotic regimen and currently take several days to complete. This long time-frame poses a risk to a patient’s life and morbidity. The Zero2One team has developed a new imaging and tracking method to perform real-time, point-of-care, and automated antibiotic susceptibility testing, which will improve clinical diagnostics, reduce healthcare costs and save lives.

Cornell University, $25,000

Phenol and its derivatives are produced in a wide variety of industrial processes and make up the majority of EPA-regulated compounds under the Clean Water Act. Traditional methods of removing phenol from wastewater are costly, use a lot of materials, and often do not convert the compounds into less reactive forms. This team’s solution traps enzymes in metal oxide nanoparticle cages and places them on scaffolds, which is both more ten times more efficient and reusable.