BioDesign 2022 Summary and Achievements

Posted on by kwanghui

We had a really exceptional year. Our students worked on exciting projects and we achieved our learning objectives. Thank you to everyone who helped make it a success.

The BioDesign 2022 Cohort

The 2022 cohort consists of seven teams.

Team Notomi

The members of Team Notomi are Chloe Bevans, Selim Darendeliler, Sas Edippily, Emily Ferguson and Jason Tam.

Team Tupointo

Team Tuponito consists of Julian Bianco, Maggie Lam, Mark Perrott, Robert Tran and Shehan Wisidagama. Their first product, The Helping Hand, aims to help nurses avoid injury.

They won the SEMBA Class of 2003 Award for Best Business Approach at the 2022 Endeavour Showcase.

They also won the Telstra Enhancing the Australian Economy Through Innovation Award.

Team Efyra

Team Efyra consists of Ryan Kimball, Dheeghayu Praveen Kusaladarma, Nirav Pal, Loukas Tsigaras and Si Yeaw. They are working on a new device to assist urological surgery.

At the Endeavour showcase, they won the University’s RIC Commercialisation Award.

Team Noodles

Rochelle De Silva, Simone Di-Bisceglie, Cindy M Hidajat, Rob Jenny and Christopher Ong created Noodles Medical. They are aiming to revolusionise womens’ health.

At the University’s Endeavour showcase, Team Noodles won four awards: 

  • Telstra Digital Innovation Award
  • Airwallex Enhancing Social Impact through Innovation Award
  • Stephen Ho Innovation Award ($20k)
  • Road to Endeavour Award

Team AcuDent

Team AcuDent consists of Aaron Binns, Anna Dai, Ashwin Ho, Liam Murray and Ivy Weng.

They are our first BioDesign team working on dental innovation. AcuDent’s device, the AcuProbe, applies computer vision within the oral environment to more efficiently and accurately conduct the work that current practice burdens the clinician to do manually. The device will ensure that proper diagnosis is achieved to avoid the occurrence of undetected periodontitis, ensuring patients receive the best possible care and dramatically reducing the chances of tooth loosening and tissue degradation.

At the Endeavour exhibition, Team Acudent won the following awards:

  • Telstra Customer & Community Impact Award;
  • Airwallex Customer Centric Design & Social Impact Award;
  • Stephen Ho Innovation Award ($30k);
  • 2022 Endeavour People’s Choice Award;
  • Runner-up for the Road to Endeavour Award.

They are also finalists for the Medtech Actuator Origin competition.

Team Envi

The members of Team Envi are Amin Abbas, Rizwan Jaipurwala, Frederick Lau, Nay Minn, Steven Wong and Yi (Joey) Zhu.

Team Envi is a finalist in the 2022 Medtech Actuator Origin competition.

Team Sensure

Team Sensure consists of Daniel Bertone, Brandon Chen, Sophia Hsiang, Aaron Khoo and Michael Qu. Workng in partnership with the Royal Childrens Hospital, they are working to reduce complications during epidural injections.

BioDesign 2021 Summary and Achievements

Posted on by kwanghui

In 2021 David, Simon and Kwang proudly received the Norman Curry Award for Innovation and Excellence in Educational Programs on behalf of the BioDesign Melbourne Program. The Norman Curry Award is only one of five University-level Teaching Excellence awards and we are really honoured to receive it.

In addition, in late 2020 we were named one of three finalists for the Excellence in Student Engagement Award by Engagement Australia.

Thank you to everyone who helped make BioDesign a success.

BioDesign Awards

This year, two teams received prizes thanks to the Stephen Ho Innovation Awards, while another team won the prize for Best Business Approach awarded by the MBS SEMBA Class of 2003.

The BioDesign 2021 Cohort

The 2021 cohort consists of six teams, working on topics relating to patient monitoring, ultrasound, vision and neonatal care.

Team Vysum

Isaac Ho, David Lin, Aryan Motevali, Darren Tan and Lorace Zhang are the members of Team Vysum. They address glaucoma, an eye disease resulting in vision loss. Team Vysum developed The Occumate, a hardware-software solution transforming the way eye drops are delivered.

The team won one of two prestigious Stephen Ho Innovation Awards to help them commercialise their invention beyond the BioDesign course.

Team Vysum is a finalist in the 2021 Medtech Actuator Origin competition.

Team InCinta

Team InCinta consists of Monisha Gunawardana, Carol Gee, Tom Lee, Hansel Winarta and Tiasha Fernando. They offer accurate remote monitoring of foetal health, which helps expecting couples overcome anxiety and reduce hospital visits.

They won the Peoples’ Choice Award at the 2021 Endeavour Showcase.

Team Vause

Team Vause consists of Michelle Callow, Amanda Druk, Shelby Holland, Mara Quach and Alexandra Wigley. They are using machine learning to improve meningitis diagnosis. This guidance tool makes spinal taps more accurate, ensuring meningitis diagnosis is less error-prone in a tool that is both portable and low-cost.

Team Vause made it into the semi-finals of the Ericsson Innovation Awards 2021 and will be representing Australia in the competition this December.

At the Endeavour showcase, they won the MBS SEMBA Class of 2003 BioDesign Award.

Team Vause is a semi-finalist of the 2021 Medtech Actuator Origin competition.

Team spOsense

Thomas Clarke, Anna Eades, Mitchell Legg, Warne Lewis and Wenn Lynn are team spOsense. They have developed an innovative way to mesaure blood oxygen saturation in children, using a wireless sensor that is both child-friendly and helps clinicians streamline the monitoring process.

At the Endeavour showcase, they won the Telstra Digital Innovation Award.

Team Venosense

Team Venosense consists of Chun Yau Gan, Shanna Lam, Olivia Lang, Song Li and Michelle Waugh.

Their team is making great strides in transforming peripheral intravenenous visualisation, through the use of a 3d imaging system that will help improve the accuracy of cannulation procedures. Cannulation is one of the most widely performed invasive procedures in medicine, and their invention has the potential to make a significant difference to the patient experience and quality of healthcare.

Team Anura

Anura consists of Jessica Anderson, Rebecca McCormick, Phoebe Lewis, William Symington and Ela Venugopal. Their invention, CAHM, aims at keeping respiratory patients out of hospital through at-home monitoring of lung function.

At the Endeavour 2021 Showcase, they won an impressive number of awards:

  • The QinetiQ Endeavour Award,
  • The Endeavour Research Innovation and Commercialisation Prize,
  • Telstra Customer and Community Impact Award,
  • Telstra Excellence in Learning and Application Award,
  • One of two Stephen Ho Innovation Awards with significant funding to help them commercialise their project idea.

Anura is a semi-finalist of the 2021 Medtech Actuator Origin competition.

Thank you for supporting BioDesign 2021

Posted on by kwanghui

We appreciate the extensive help of our guest speakers, community leaders, partners organisations and colleagues.

In 2021, we ran session in-person, hybrid and zoom-only. It was quite an adventure.

The teaching team (David Grayden, Kwanghui Lim and Simon Wilkins) would like to express our gratitude to everyone who contributed to making BioDesign2021 a success, including:

Guest Speakers

  • Callum Lawrence, Senior Project Officer, Innovation Initiatives at University of Melbourne.
  • David Harrison, Principal Consultant, DWH Consulting.
  • Dean Freestone, Co-founder and CEO, Seer Medical.
  • Elaine Saunders, Managing Director at Bingarra ScaleUp Solutions.
  • Esther Apos, Director at CMS Scidoc.
  • Fabian Lim, Industry Partnership and Commercialisation, Imperial College London. Formerly at University of Melbourne.
  • Guido Tresoldi, Liaison Librarian, University of Melbourne.
  • Jonathan Inglis, (MBA, MBS) for co-authoring and co-teaching the NAVi Case Study with Kwang.
  • Jordan Green, President and Founder, Melbourne Angels.
  • A/Prof Jia-Yee Lee, Associate Professor, Enterprise Fellow (Medtech), Melbourne School of Engineering at University of Melbourne.
  • Kyle Slater, CPO at Seer Medical and former CEO at nura.
  • Emeritus Professor Leon Mann, University of Melbourne, who taught our students how to create high-performing teams.
  • Leonore Ryan, Entrepreneur in Residence, TRaM Program, University of Melbourne.
  • Laxmi Pun, Melbourne Accelerator Project.
  • Lachlan Wilson, Patent and Trademark Attorney. Lead, Intellectual Property Team at The University of Melbourne.
  • Maria Pelipas and Makenzie Thomas from The Actuator.
  • Michelle Kleynhans, who returned once again to share real-world commercialisation knowledge.
  • Dr. Tam Nguyen, Associate Professor and Deputy Director of Research, St Vincent’s Hospital.
  • Dr. Vinayak Smith, clinician and scientist based at Monash University.
  • Warren Rudd, Co-founder of Curvecrete.

Panelists

  • Prof Andrea O’Connor, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • A/Prof David Ackland, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Dr David Collins, Dept of Biomedical Engineering
  • Professor Glenn Hoetker, MBS.
  • A/Prof Jia-Yee Lee, Enterprise Fellow (Medtech), Melbourne School of Engineering at University of Melbourne.
  • Dr. Lionel Lam, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Dr. Katie Davey, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Prof Leigh Johnston, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • A/Prof Kathryn Stok, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Dr. Sam John, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Vicki Allen, MBS Alumnae and representative of the MBS Semba Class of 2003 for serving on the pitch selection panel.
  • Dr. Vini Gautam, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.

Alumni

  • Alex Newton, Brad Bergmann, Mubin Yousef, Shing Yue Sheung, and Wei Sue from NAVi Medical Technologies for helping us throughout the term.
  • Ajit Ravindran, CEO of Lenexa Medical for tips on how to pitch and become investor-ready.
  • Elise Sutherland, CEO of Stelect for being a “live case” in class.
  • Josh Huang and James Lo from YABi Medical for helping our students learn about stakeholder analysis.
  • Reagan Susanto, Dylan Andrews and Yatin Saluja on Needs Analysis.
  • Richa Bhutani, Teri Nolan, Reagan Susanto and Dylan Andrews for helping us with the launch session.
  • All the alumni who came and supported us during the Session 12 NAVi case premiere.

Donors

  • Stephen Ho for very generously contributing time and funding towards the student teams, along with his daughter Tracy Ho for offering feedback to the teams.
  • Ian Kirk whose sustained contributions to MBS makes this course viable.
  • The MBS SEMBA class of 2003 for project funding and a commercialisation prize.

Thank you for supporting BioDesign 2020

Posted on by kwanghui

Teaching BioDesign in 2020 was particularly challenging due to Covid19. We could not have done it without the extensive help of our guest speakers, community leaders, partners organisations and colleagues.

The teaching team (David Grayden, Kwanghui Lim and Simon Wilkins) would like to express our gratitude to everyone who helped including:

Guest Speakers

  • Annabella Newton, Senior Associate, Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick.
  • Chris Farley, COO – Design @ Planet Innovation.
  • David Harrison, Principal Consultant, DWH Consulting.
  • Dean Freestone, Co-founder and CEO, Seer Medical.
  • Denzil Furtado, Westpac Future Leaders Scholar, University of Melbourne.
  • Elaine Saunders, Managing Director at Bingarra ScaleUp Solutions.
  • Esther Apos, Director at CMS Scidoc.
  • Guido Tresoldi, Liaison Librarian, University of Melbourne.
  • Jordan Green, President and Founder, Melbourne Angels.
  • Jia-Yee Lee, Associate Professor, Enterprise Fellow (Medtech), Melbourne School of Engineering at University of Melbourne.
  • Kyle Slater, CPO at Seer Medical and former CEO at nura.
  • Liz Williams, CEO at Hemideina.
  • Leonore Ryan, Entrepreneur in Residence, TRaM Program, University of Melbourne.
  • Laxmi Pun, Melbourne Accelerator Project.
  • Lachlan Wilson, Patent and Trademark Attorney. Lead, Intellectual Property Team at The University of Melbourne.
  • Michelle Kleynhans, Head of New Ventures, MedTech Actuator.
  • Nick Opie, CTO and Founder at Synchron.
  • Paul Carboon, CoFounder, Chair and CEO Microbio, Business Development @ Outerspace Design.
  • Tam Nguyen, Associate Professor and Deputy Director of Research, St Vincent’s Hospital.
  • Warren Rudd, Co-founder of Curvecrete.

Panelists and Special Sessions

  • Prof Andrea O’Connor, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Professor Dan Galai and Nadav for the special joint session with Hebrew University Jerusalem BioDesign.
  • A/Prof David Ackland, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Dr David Collins, Dept of Biomedical Engineering
  • Professor Glenn Hoetker, MBS.
  • Dr. Hamish Meffin, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Associate Professor Jia-Yee Lee, Enterprise Fellow (Medtech), Melbourne School of Engineering at University of Melbourne.
  • Dr. Kathryn Stok, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Emeritus Professor Leon Mann, University of Melbourne.
  • Prof Sandra Kentish, School of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering.

Alumni

  • Alex Newton, Brad Bergmann, Mubin Yousef, Shing Yue Sheung, and Wei Sue from NAVi Medical Technologies for helping us throughout the term.
  • Eric Liew, Kulaghan Kumaradevan, Edward Buijs on Needs Analysis.
  • Elise Sutherland, CEO of Stelect for being a “live case” in class.
  • Alumni careers panel: Wei Sue (NAVi), Wei-shen Mak (Rakutan), Ned Tyndall (CSIRO), and Sarah Fink (OMX)

Donors

  • Ian Kirk whose sustained contributions to MBS makes this course viable.
  • Graham Beanland and family for funding prototyping expenses and the Graham Beanland Commercialisation Award.

BioDesign 2020 Summary and Achievements

Posted on by kwanghui

The 2020 cohort consists of four teams, working on topics relating to patient monitoring, stroke rehabilitation and neonatal care.

Team YABi

Team YABi has developed an accurate and automated method for monitoring and escalating surgical drain output. This is valuable for patients recovering from surgery.

At the 2020 University of Melbourne Endeavour Exhibition, Team YABi won the prestigious Graham Beanland Commercialisation Award. They also won the QinetiQ Endeavour Award.

Somnus Medical

Team Somnus addresses postoperative oxygen desaturation in patients suffering obstructive sleep apnea, through the use of a wearable device.

Team Somnus were Runner Up for the Road to Endeavour Award, 2020.

Team BioStory

BioStory developed an innovative system for the early detection of sepsis in pre-term babies.

At the Endeavour Exhibition BioStory won the Telstra Customer and Community Impact Award and special mention for the Graham Beanland Commercialisation Award. It received the Peoples’ Choice award from Endeavour with over a thousand votes. BioStory also won 3rd place for the Road to Endeavour Video award.

Team ReCube

Team ReCube ensures continuity in stroke rehabilitation under the remote care of a physiotherapist by using a wearable sensor device.

BioDesign 2016 at Endeavour

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Our BioDesign teams exhibited their work at the University of Melbourne Endeavour Engineering & IT Exhibition event on 20th October 2016.

Three of the teams were featured on television by Nine News.

Congratulations to team Neuro. They won one of two Endeavour Wade Institute Entrepreneurship prizes. They also won the IEEE Award for Technical Innovation & Engineering Achievement.

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Team Neuro at the Awards Ceremony with Dean of Engineering, Prof. Iven Mareels, and Master of Ormond College & the Wade Institute, Rufus Black. Photo by Kwang.

Each team presented a demo and poster at their booth. It was a great chance to share their hard work and they received a great deal of interest among visitors.

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Team Navi at Endeavour. Photo by Kwang

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Team SWADE at Endeavour. Photo by Kwang.

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Team PELT at Endeavour. Photo by Kwang

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Team n.i. at Endeavour. Photo by Kwang

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Kwang at the SWADE booth trying an NGT. Photo by Team SWADE

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Prof Leon Mann visits team PELT’s Endeavour booth

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Mubin shows a demo at Endeavour. Photo by Kwang.

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Team Neuro wins one of two Wade Institute Entrepreneurship Award

2016 BioDesign Distinguished Speakers

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We thank the distinguished speakers who shared their knowledge and experience with the class in 2016. They include:

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Andrew Batty

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Peter Blamey

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Q&A With Peter Blamey and Elaine Saunders

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Charlie Day discusses patenting and commercialization

  • Dan Galai, co-founder of Biodesign Israel and Abe Gray Professor of Finance and Business Administration, Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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Dan Galai

  • Jordan Green, Business Development Director, Research Innovation & Commercialization, University of Melbourne.

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Jordan Green

  • Chaim Lotan, Chair in Cardiology (HUJ) and Co-founder of Biodesign Israel.

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Chaim Lotan

  • Tam Nguyen, Executive Officer of Research, St. Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne.

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Tam Nguyen

  • Professor Leon Mann, Director of Research Leadership Unit, Melbourne Research.

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Leon Mann

  • Philip Nowell, Founder & CEO of Ontogo. Former VP & Global Leader, Cook Medical.

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Philip Nowell

  • Simon Wilkins, Senior Project Manager, Carlton Connect at University of Melbourne

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Simon Wilkins

  • Tom Williams, Principal – InnovationConsult & BioMentoring Australia

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Tom Williams

The 2016 BioDesign Class

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BioDesign Melbourne was co-taught by Kwanghui Lim and David Grayden. The pioneering class of BioDesign students consists of five teams.

Team Navi:

01navi-p1280558-nometa-web-doneAlex Newton, Wei Sue, Bradley Bergmann, Shing Yue Sheung and Mubin Yousuf.

Project:

For over 60 years, umbilical venous catheters (UVCs) have been placed in critically ill new-born babies to provide a vital pathway for drug delivery. Despite frequent and widespread use, UVC insertions are performed “blind”, with no guarantee of correct placement during the procedure, potentially putting the patient’s safety at risk.

We create a device that identifies the UVC tip location to ensure correct placement. Development of this device not only reduces the time, resource and materials currently required for UVC insertions, but above all improves clinical outcomes for the patient.

Team Neuro:

02emma-p1280686-nometa-web-doneGerdus Buitendag, Evelyn Loveband, Nicola Ingram and William Abbott.

Project:

A way for stroke patients to undertake independent rehabilitation in hospital using a computer-based platform.

Team SWADE:

03swade-p1260870-swadeSarah Fink, Wei-shen Mak, Andrew Davey, David McAllister and Edward Green.

Project:

Nasogastric tubes (NGT’s) are used to both drain and supply food to the stomach in patients.  Each year nine million NGTs are used globally. However, NGTs are reported to be misplaced in 20 – 50% of placement attempts. If left undetected, misplaced NGTs may lead to severe harm or death. We have developed a medical device to improve the detection of NGT placement, along with a business plan for its potential commercialisation.

Team Pelt:

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BoQu (Carl) Lin, Vanessa Pang, Samuel Ellis and Edward Tyndall.

Project:

Neonatal jaundice is a common disease in newborns. Newborns are treated with phototherapy to convert a component (Bilirubin) in their bloodstream. Current phototherapy devices using optical fibre are stiff and bulky, reducing parent-child interaction.

Through exploration (with nurses, clinicians and academics) of neonatal jaundice, a potential solution to enhancing parent-child interaction is through providing more flexibility and portability to current phototherapy devices. The prototype aims to address these needs through experimentations with current LED light technologies and battery alternatives, which provides similar or better light intensity. A business model was constructed to guide the prototype to commercialization.

Team Ni:

05p1280719-nometa-web-doneTim Allison-Walker, Chen Chen, Derek Sheen and Megan Kong.

Project:

Peripheral intravenous line placement and monitoring is thought of as a routine procedure. In neonatal populations, however, it is fraught with difficulty and danger, often leading to both short- and long-term complications and discomfort. Better methods and equipment are needed to improve outcomes.

This project aims to iterate on existing catheter-needle insertion devices with simple electronic sensor circuitry. This is achieved with a two-stage combination that provides feedback on the relative position of the needle and the cannula. Allowing the physician to make informed decisions during insertion will reduce procedure time and complexity, rates of bruising, and later extravasation that results from less-than-ideal line placement.