Fellows Program : About

The Medical Devices Fellows Program is a full immersion educational and product development program for medical device creation. It is led by MDC Program Director Dr. Marie Johnson, who has a successful history in creating medical devices - including prototyping, testing, applying for patents, leading and managing interdisciplinary teams, interfacing with medical professionals, and working with business and regulatory issues

2008-2009 Fellows Ben Arcand, Nikhil Murdeshwar, Joe Hale and Bryan Rolfes branstorm for a new project in the Brainstorming Room at the Medical Devices Center

September 2008 was the beginning of the inaugural year of the MDC Fellows Program. Initially, the University brought four fellows to the U of M following a national search process. This cross-functional team has a combination of degrees in engineering, medicine, and/or biosciences with demonstrated evidence of innovation and product development. Fellows were immersed in an intense training program with access to first-class facilities in engineering and medicine research labs across campus. The fellows interface daily with faculty, medical professionals and industry collaborators to develop and test new medical devices with the goal to improve health care worldwide.

The Fellows Program curriculum indicates formal instruction in product development processes and regulatory issues. Fellows observe surgery, attend medical rotations, and participate in organized medical device company visits. In addition, the fellows teach, share and learn by mentoring undergraduate and graduate student design teams from across the Institute of Technology, support the Design of Medical Devices conference, and interact with the new College of Design's Product Design Program.

MDC Fellows also work with faculty collaborators from both engineering and medicine. They identify, develop, prototype, and test medical devices and interface with University technology transfer and licensing groups. In addition, the Fellows take full advantage of the new MDC core prototyping facilities and connections to the surrounding med-tech industry. The program seeks to generate a minimum of 20 provisional patent applications for advanced novel devices in its first year. These applications will be based on a full understanding of medical needs and multiple sets of prototype/testing cycles. Our MDC Fellow sponsors are offered preferred access to both the new facilities and to novel new intellectual property.

Fellows present to Senator John Marty at the State Capitol

MDC Innovation Fellows Program Goals:

• Produce the next generation of medical device entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders;
• Foster interdisciplinary networks of high-level engineering and health science professionals;
• Be a source of mentoring and design projects for graduate and undergraduate design classes;
• Identify fundamental technology needs and technical barriers to the next generation of medical devices that will result in new research in the basic, biological, and biomedical sciences. Funding for these emerging fundamental studies will be sought from agencies such as NSF or NIH;
• Develop innovative devices and new medical procedures that will contribute to improving quality of life while reducing health care costs;
• Focus on more non-invasive health care, which will translate into less pain, shorter, less frequent hospital stays, and quicker recovery; and
  
• Offer our sponsors information about developing technologies created in the program, through time spent with the fellow team as well as across to the new core labs.