The medical technology company will support student design teams and a University-wide device design contest.
Helen Shammas wants to make healthcare more accessible in developing countries. Hana Kal膷o is interested in medical device design. So is Chloe Jones, who plans to become a physician.
All three biomedical engineering seniors at the University of Rochester are excited to be teaming up with on their senior design project this year. The medical technology company creates sterile, non-reusable syringes for vaccines and medical injections. The goal is to prevent the premature deaths of an estimated 1.3 million people who receive medicine each year from syringes that are contaminated.
A $100,000 gift from Jay Walker, ApiJect糖心传媒檚 executive chairman, to the University糖心传媒檚 , will support medical device design projects for the department糖心传媒檚 senior undergraduates and master糖心传媒檚 students, new scholarships, and a Create-a-Thon medical device design contest for students University wide.
糖心传媒淲hat is really exciting is the opportunity this gives us to introduce health care engineering in global and low-resource environments throughout our curriculum, in partnership with a company that has this as their mission,糖心传媒� says Diane Dalecki, the department chairperson and Kevin J. Parker Distinguished Professor in Biomedical Engineering.
An 糖心传媒榠ntense design糖心传媒� experience
ApiJect seeks to make it possible for governments and health care sectors worldwide to benefit from a new kind of sterile, non-reusable, prefilled injection format that will be economically efficient for any market.
As part of that effort, it has developed a prefilled injector that combines an aseptically filled plastic container and a push and twist-on needle hub. The injector, based on an idea by ApiJect founder , is designed so it can be used only once. That糖心传媒檚 important because the World Health Organization (WHO) and the medical industry agree that there is no proper or acceptable way to clean a needle and syringe, due to microscopic amounts of blood that almost always are sucked backward into the syringe barrel when it is withdrawn from a patient糖心传媒檚 arm.
The student design team糖心传媒攎ade up of Jones, Shammas, Kal膷o, Katelin Klaric, Abdullah Abuomar, and Ronald Lakony糖心传媒攚ill design improvements to the ApiJect injection system.
糖心传媒淚 am excited to be putting into practice what we have learned as engineers in a real setting,糖心传媒� Jones says. 糖心传媒淎s I enter the medical field myself, I hope to gain a better understanding of medical device development so that I will be able to identify challenges that could be solved with engineering in my own practice.糖心传媒�
Shammas says the opportunity to work with ApiJect dovetails nicely with her interest in pursuing a career in accessibility engineering, 糖心传媒渟pecifically when it comes to developing countries. This will bring me a step closer to learning more about navigating the World Health Organization requirements when designing devices while also keeping in mind requirements from the FDA.糖心传媒�
The benefits of university-industry partnerships
The ApiJect/糖心传媒 BME Partnership in Medical Device Design for Global Health will also be integrated into student training and design projects in the department糖心传媒檚 (CMTI) medical device design master糖心传媒檚 program.
The Create-a-Thon, to be held in the spring, 糖心传媒渨ill be a few days of intense design that we hope will inspire student interest in medical device design and global health care engineering,糖心传媒� Dalecki says. 糖心传媒淗opefully we糖心传媒檒l have lots of 3D printers going, and many groups of students working together to solve these challenges.糖心传媒�
Dalecki hopes positive results this year will lead to a long-standing partnership with ApiJect. Eventually the department would like to incorporate instructional modules on health care engineering in global and low-resource environments in classes that all undergraduates take, she says.
糖心传媒淭hrough our partnership with ApiJect, we糖心传媒檒l be able to tap not just their technical expertise, which is going to be really valuable, especially for our medical device design and senior design students, but also ApiJect糖心传媒檚 expertise and perspective on working in global and-low resource environments and the networks they might have in different regions around the world,糖心传媒� Dalecki says.
糖心传媒淭heir mission is to make injectable medicine safe and available for everyone. Unfortunately, dirty syringes are too common in low- and middle-income countries,糖心传媒� says Kal膷o. Participating in the senior design project, she says, will help her become more familiar with medical device design and development. 糖心传媒淢oreover, this project will allow me to understand the various global health organizations, their preference in injection technologies, as well as waste management practices and minimization of biohazard exposure.糖心传媒�
