MEDLaunch, SLU's Biomedical Incubator, Kicks Off Second Year
After a successful inaugural year, which saw each team seek a provisional patent for its design, MEDLaunch is ready to form its second class of biomedical innovators.
The MEDLaunch team participated in the SLU Entrepreneurs' Club Billicon Valley event on Thursday, Sept. 29.
Founded in 2015 by SLU School of Medicine students, MEDLaunch is a nonprofit, biomedical and entrepreneurship incubator partnering with Saint Louis University and other organizations in the area.
The program is the product of collaborative efforts between SLU School of Medicine, Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business, Parks College of Engineering, Aviation, and Technology, and SLU School of Law.
It began when a group of medical students wanted to know how to improve medicine. They took that question directly to those working in the field already.
"We went to doctors and asked what should we fix — what they would work on if they had the time," said founder Andy Hayden, a third-year medical student at Saint Louis University.
Last year, teams worked on solutions to problems as varied as accurately measuring blood loss in the operating room, to preventing foot problems and amputation in diabetes patients and automating the delivery and weaning of oxygen for hospitalized patients.
This year students will attempt to improve patient care through a variety of projects.
2016-17 Projects
- A novel design for an IV catheter
- A platform for improving patient communication in the emergency department
- Improving medical simulation lab technologies
- Remote cardiac rehabilitation
- Optimization of mechanical ventilation
- Automated neurologic function evaluation
Alexa Melvin, a senior mechanical engineering student, is the team leader for the team seeking to automate a neurologic function evaluation.
"We want to create a robotic device with a camera that could deliver voice commands to patients and record responses," Melvin said. "It would alert nurses to any changes in function."
How It Works
MEDLaunch participants work as multidisciplinary teams under the guidance of clinical and industry mentors to improve the standard of health care in areas including surgical devices, health information technology and medical diagnostics.
Physicians share ideas for improving daily clinical practice, and teams of students tackle those ideas with an aim for creating a practical solution which will improve the practice of medicine.
The arc of a MEDLaunch project follows the school calendar. Teams formed during fall semester will present their projects in late spring.
- September-October: Problem identification and team formation
- October-December: Initial market evaluation and design approach
- January-April: Business model creation and iterative prototyping
- May: Provisional patent filing and LLC formation
Each team has at least one medical student, one engineering student and one business student. Once formed, the teams work to create a new solution to their problem that can be marketed and produced for everyday use.
The year ends with a Demo Day presentation to local investors and angel networks, with the goal of obtaining seed funding to progress to advanced prototyping, clinical trials and manufacturing.