10 collegiate teams to compete in D.C. for cash prizes
Invent Now, Inc., in an effort to recognize the outstanding work of this country’s student innovators, announced the 2010 finalists of its annual Collegiate Inventors Competition. This year’s group of finalists includes undergraduate and graduate students with inventions ranging from a novel surgical sponge to a new way of studying the electrical workings of living cells. Now in its 21st year, the Competition’s presenting sponsors include the Abbott Fund, the philanthropic foundation of the global health care company Abbott, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The 10 finalists, consisting of three individual students and seven teams, will travel to Washington, D.C. to present their inventions to an esteemed panel of judges, which includes several inductees to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, on October 26th. The winners will be announced on October 27th at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., The top undergraduate winner will receive $10,000, with second and third place winners receiving $5,000 and $2,500. The top graduate winner will receive $15,000, with second and third place winners receiving $10,000 and $5,000.
The 2010 finalists are:
Undergraduates
Devon Anderson, Jonathan Guerrette, Nathan Niparko, Dartmouth College
Absorbent, Bioresorbable Surgical Sponge—A surgical sponge that, if accidentally left in a patient’s body during surgery, will breakdown into harmless components
Michael Harm, Gregory Capece, Nicholas Rocha, Lehigh University
MPlug—A plug adapter that allows the user to plug and unplug devices with greater ease
Leyla Isik, Salina Khushal, Michael Shen, Emilie Yeh, Johns Hopkins University
Intelligent Surgical Drill for Improved Orthopedic Surgery—An attachment for increasing the precision and safety of surgical drills that detects sudden accelerations and stops the drill to prevent potentially dangerous situations
Mark Jensen, Brigham Young University
Continuous Fabrication of Composite Lattice Pole Structures—A 3-D braiding machine to produce high-strength lattice poles for structural and building needs
Jacob Murray, Paul Wettin, Carla Heathman, Jeffrey Sweeney, Washington State University
USB Data Transfer and Storage Device—USB memory key that allows information to be copied to another key without a computer
Graduates
Alice Chen, MIT/Harvard University
Humanized Mouse via Tissue-Engineered Liver Mimetics for Drug Development—A matrix of human liver cells that can be implanted in mice to model human reaction to drugs, which may make pharmaceutical testing faster and cheaper
Erez Lieberman-Aiden, Nynke L. van Berkum, MIT/Harvard University/University of Massachusetts Medical School
Hi-C: Method for Genome Sequencing in Three Dimensions—A new technique to study how six feet of human DNA is folded into a nucleus in an efficient and functional way and how this relates to human disease
Feng Shen, Wenbin Du, University of Chicago
High Throughput Multiplex Nanoliter PCR on a SlipChip—A way to implement PCR (a method for amplifying specific DNA sequences) on a credit card size platform suitable for use in the field, allowing for inexpensive and portable PCR
Bozhi Tian, Tzahi Cohen-Karni, Harvard University
Three-dimensional, Flexible Nanoscale Field Effect Transistors as Intracellular Probes—A three-dimensional nanoscale semiconductor device that works in single cells and serves as an intracellular electrical sensor
Thomas Vierbuchen, Stanford University
A Method for Reprogramming Skin Cells into Functional Neuron-like Cells—A protocol for using skin cells to generate cells that function similarly to neurons, useful for studying disease, drug development, and disease treatment
Early in 2010, Invent Now began the process of soliciting entries from hundreds of campuses across the nation. Once entries were received, they were judged by experts in various technological fields on the originality of the idea, process, or technology, level of student initiative, as well as potential value and usefulness to society. This year’s finalists represent some of the top collegiate innovators from American universities, and showcase the ingenuity of the nation’s young scientists and inventors.
This year’s judges include five inductees from the National Inventors Hall of Fame: C. Don Bateman (ground proximity warning system in aircraft), Marcian “Ted” Hoff (microprocessor), Don Keck (optical fiber), Alois Langer (implantable defibrillator), and James West (electret microphone). In addition, the judging panel will include experts from Abbott and the USPTO.
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