About Us | Earl E. Bakken Medical Devices Center

"I am pleased and honored to have the Center named for me. The innovation that takes place there is crucial to the advancement of healthcare that keeps the well-being of the patient as its focus. As an electrical engineer In the early days, I spent many hours side-by-side with the doctors and surgeons so that their needs and new ideas could be expeditiously developed, getting life-saving therapy to a patient in record time. This type of collaboration is key to finding new ways to help people live longer, fuller lives."

-Earl E. Bakken

The Earl E. Bakken Medical Devices Center (BMDC)

The BMDC is an interdisciplinary program that sits within the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Engineering in Medicine (IEM). The BMDC brings together expertise from the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing, College of Science and Engineering and the Health Sciences (the Medical School, School of Dentistry, College of Veterinary Medicine, School of Nursing, and College of Pharmacy). The BMDC combines basic research, applied and translational research, education and training, and outreach and public engagement related to medical devices.

The BMDC Industry Collaborations group engages with local, national and global companies to partner industry and academia to discover unmet clinical needs.

The BMDC MedWorx™ and Protoyping Facility supports researchers, clinicians and engineers in their efforts to resolve clinical needs. Services include 3D Printing, 3D Scanning, Engineering/CAD, Segmentation and Virtualization (VR).

The BMDC Innovation Fellows Program is a full- immersion educational and product development program for medical device creation. The goal of the program is to train Fellows to be med-tech leaders by fostering leadership and teaching risk management as relates to medical devices.