We appreciate 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 contributed to making BioDesign2024 a success, including:

Guest Speakers and Presenters:

• Alex Agudelo, CEO of Kemu.
• Alex Graham, Telstra Creator Space.
• Andrew Nash, Operating Partner, University of Melbourne Commercialisation & Entrepreneur-at-Large.
• Bob Soh, Brandon Capital.
• David Harrison, DWH Consulting.
• Esther Apos, Director at CMS Scidoc.
• Gary Haywood, D&I (Design & Industry).
• Guido Tresoldi, Liaison Librarian, University of Melbourne.
• Jordan Green AM, President Emeritus and Founder, Melbourne Angels; Chairman of Axletree Capital; Victorian State Chair and National Exco Member, Pearcey Foundation.
• Jia-Yee Lee, Director, Strategy and Alliance, BioNTech Australia.
• Kynan Taylor and Rachel Hook at Cobalt Design.
• Ludovic Labat, CEO, NeoBionica.
• Makenzie Thomas and Lizzie Laurence from The Actuator.
• Maria Pelipas, Research Acceleration Manager, TRAM Air program.
• Marina Chelak (Melbourne Accelerator), Katrina Gaskin (MAP Velocity Program) and Rory McNeice (Melbourne Entrepreneurial Centre).
• Sinthujan Jegaskanda, BioDesign2023 and MCRI on IP Strategy.
• Dr. Tam Nguyen, Associate Professor and Deputy Director of Research, St Vincent’s Hospital.
• Wei Sue, CFO of Navi Medical and Acting CEO, Climateworks.

Panelists

• Prof Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas (Thas), Dept of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Dean, FEIT.
• Prof Andrea O’Connor, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
• Assoc Prof Andrea North-Samardzic, Associate Dean, Executive Degree Programs, MBS.
• Assoc Prof Daniel Heath, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
• Assoc Prof David Ackland, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
• Prof. David Nisbet, Dept of Biomedical Engineering. Director of the Graeme Clark Institute and the Head of the Laboratory of Advanced Biomaterials.
• Assoc Prof Hamish Meffin, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
• Prof. Leigh Johnston, Dept of Biomedical Engineering. Director of the Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit in the Department of Medicine and Radiology.
• Assoc Prof Marcus Watson, Enterprise Fellow, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
• Asst Prof Najoung Lim, MBS.
• Pam Rebecca, MBS Alumnae and representative of the MBS Semba Class of 2003.
• Paul McDonald, MBS Alumnae and representative of the MBS Semba Class of 2003.
• Dr. Philippa (Pip) Karoly, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.
• Sarah Fink, Product Integration Engineer at SCHOTT MINIFAB and BioDesign Class of 2016.
• Stephen Ho and Tracy Ho.
• Assoc Prof Vijay Rajagopal, Dept of Biomedical Engineering.

Alumni

• Alex Newton, Brad Bergmann, Mubin Yousef, Shing Yue Sheung, and Wei Sue of NAVi Medical Technologies for helping us throughout the term.
• Amin Abbas on pitching and his BioDesign journey.
• Liam Murray on ideation.
• Lorace Zhang, CEO of Vysum.
• Anura Medical: Jess Anderson and Bec McCormick.
• Ellis Medical: Lee M Hanify, Liz Davis, Shirdheen Murali and Sinth Jegaskanda.
• Lenexa: Ajit Ravindran, CEO and Will Yang, Chief Scientific Officer.
• Sano Technologies: David Conidaris, Benny Li, Candice Bao and John A. Nguyen.
• Ventora Medical: Amy Yu (CTO) and Edward Bujis (CEO).
• All the alumni who came and supported us throughout.

Donors

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

Thank you to everyone who helped make BioDesign2023 a success.

The BioDesign 2023 Cohort

The 2023 cohort consists of six teams.

Team 1: Iris Medical

The members of Iris Medical are Auwen Xia, Isabella Doan, Kate Owen, Jennifer Meek, and James Williams. Their project revolutionises IUD insertion.

Iris Medical won three awards at the Endeavour showcase. Each of these is open to all of the 120+ project participants, so theirs is a remarkable achievement.

• Endeavour Research, Innovation and Commercialisation Award. This year, the prestigious RIC award also includes entry into the MAP Velocity Program.
• Airwallex Enhancing Social Impact Through Innovation Award, and the
• QinetiQ Endeavour Award.

Team 2: BlissFlow

BlissFlow consists of Connie Zhang, Xinyi Wang, Arun Jha, Davide Boffa, Isabella Jones and Michal Pasternak. They are addressing urinary incontinence with a new device.

They won the $10,000 SEMBA Class of 2003 Award for Best Business Approach at the 2023 Endeavour Showcase.

Team 3: Sano Technologies (Sanotech)

Sano Technologies consists of David Conidaris (BME), Benny Li (BME), Yen Tien Yap (BME), Candice Bao (MBA) and John A. Nguyen (MBA). The team is developing a high-definition composition mapping system for lymphoedema, a chronic condition characterised by fluid build-up that frequently occurs after surgery or trauma.

At the Endeavour 2023 showcase, Sano Technologies won two distinguished awards:

• One of two Stephen Ho Innovation Awards, winning a sizable $20,000 prize. This award recognises the dedication of the team in identifying clinical needs, validating these needs in the market, and then proceeding to develop prototypes and business plans. The prize money will support further prototyping and provide financial backing for continued development after the BioDesign course concludes.
• The Telstra Community Impact Excellence Award. This award celebrates efforts that go beyond standard business objectives and aims to make a meaningful and lasting difference in the communities they serve. By operating in an ethical and trustworthy manner, Sano Technologies will inspire and bring about positive change in the lymphoedema community.

Sano Technologies is committed to making a long-term, positive impact on human health. The team is excited to expand its disruptive innovation, considering broader applications for other conditions that would benefit from high-definition composition mapping.

Team 4: Ellis Medical

Laura Harman, Seray Colakoglu, Shirdheen Murali, Lee M Hanify, Sinth Jegaskanda and Liz Davis founded Ellis Medical. They are aiming to improve the monitoring of patient lungs in ICU.

At the University’s Endeavour showcase, Ellis Medical won the top prize for the Stephen Ho Innovation Award, worth $30,000. In addition they won the Peoples’ Choice Award, further validation that their work has the potential to make a big impact in future.

Team 5: ReArm

Team ReARM consists of Yuyang Mei (Young), Yuanzhi Zhuo, Michael Coghlan, Kimberly Ang, Yuanqing Jiang (Ryan) and Zhu Mao (Jackie). Their invention aims to help stroke survivors restore mobility, through a combination of a werable device, analytics software and a mobile arm-support system.

Team 6: Scar No More

The members of Scar No More are Xi (Cecily) Chen, Ethan Kalms, Ish Kadakia, Cheens Lee, Edie Cheng and Joanne Du. They are working on a new approach to help people with major scars, such as Keloid scars. Their project is ambitious in combining multiple techniques into one simple and efficient approach to help clinicians improve the way scars are reduced.

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. They are working on upper limb assessment.

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 won the 2022 Medtech Actuator Origin competition.

Team Sensure

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

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.

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.