Interesting Yale University model for med device development

At Yale University, a college (undergraduate) course, ‘Medical Device and Innovation’ , perhaps is pointing to the 2014 future of medical device development in the academic setting. The course was co-taught by the assistant director of Yale’s Center for Engineering Innovation and Design (CEID) and an associate research scientist at the Yale School of Medicine; the original device ideas were pitched by doctors at Yale Medical; and the development teams included engineers, physicists, chemists, school of management students and environmental studies students. The four projects which were developed to the point of early prototype were: a perfusion and transportation system for surgeons who want to perform small bowel transplants; a non-invasive tool so that surgeons gain better access for surgeries in the back of the tongue and skull (which included 3D printed parts); an epileptic seizure recorder that clips onto a belt and reads data from two electrodes behind the ear; a single-unit drug delivery system for hemophiliac children that injects drugs and notifies parents at the same time. While the New Haven Register article in MedCityNews focuses on the novel prototypes, what is more interesting to this Editor is that device development is being pushed down to the undergraduate level, it is highly interdisciplinary and economics and environmental impact is ‘baked into’ the prototype/proposal. Not mentioned is how it can add to Yale’s technology transfer/commercialization portfolio.