Out of the 144 student projects submitted for the 2018 Winter Design Review, Dean Gregory Washington recognized 13 student teams, who received a certificate of achievement as well as the Dean’s Choice Award blue ribbon. The top three teams hail from the Cove @ UCI’s BioENGINE program, which engages and educates faculty, physicians, postdoctoral fellows, students, and industry leaders to develop impactful digital health solutions to improve the lives of people in our community and across the globe.
Winning teams were chosen based on the project’s ability to meet larger challenges, such as combat disease, improve health, conserve the environment and promote energy sustainability/efficiency.
The top three team projects are:
BIOPRINTER FOR HIGH THROUGHPUT PHARMACEUTICAL DEVELOPMENT
Optimizes an existing prototype of a 3-D bioprinter for pharmaceutical development applications
The team hopes to achieve a resolution of 5-to-10 micrometers using their design to dispense different materials with high accuracy. Their vision is to be able to produce high-quantity arrays to fast track discovery or repurpose known medications.
Students: McKell Davis (leader), Sydney Minar, Ethan Lieberman, Dereck Lublin, Alex Schmidt
Mentor: Professor Elliot Botvinick, Ph.D.
FABRICATION OF NANOPATTERNS ON A CURVED POLYMER CORNEA DEVICE
Modifies and simplifies the current fabrication method of imprinting nanostructures onto a polymer cornea implant
These structures will be validated by characterization techniques and animal studies. The team aims to start the commercialization of the polymer implants.
Students: Cesar Ramales (leader), Heejun Chough, Calvin Li, Brendon Tran, Mai Yang
Mentor: Professor Albert Yee, Ph.D.
GAMIFYING RESPIRATION THERAPY DEVICE
Incentivized therapeutic device designed to help pediatric pulmonary patients improve their breathing technique
This device uses a stretch sensor attached to the floating rib of the patient to monitor respiratory rate and a game to incentivize therapy adherence.
Students: Evelyn Vasquez (leader), Lucy Zhuang, Truc Dinh, Nini Nguyen, Zhen Wan
Mentor: Professor Michelle Khine, Ph.D.
The teams are also invited to participate in Ingenuity 2018, an annual showcase event that features the top student innovations from both the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences and The Henry Samueli School of Engineering.