Two professors win $100K grants to advance medical devices
Zong-Ming Li (left, at the 2024 Craig M. Berge Design Day) and Russell Witte (in the Experimental Ultrasound and Neural Imaging Lab) each won $100,000 from the Flinn Foundation to move health care products closer to market. Both are affiliated with BME.
The Flinn Foundation selected BME professors Zong-Ming Li and Russell Witte to receive $100,000 grants to advance devices aimed at improving health.
Together with Craig M. Berge Design Day student teams, Li designed a device to help relieve the symptoms of the 1% to 5% of American adults with carpal tunnel syndrome.
“I’m determined that now we have to move forward and bring this to the patient,” said Li.
Students in Team 25013 are building on work completed by last year’s teams to help Li bring the device to the market.
“Ideas and generalized findings of their projects definitely still remain within our new models, but with a new, slim, and much more cost-effective design,” said Team 25013 project leader and BME major Ryan Henry Walton Mitstifer.
Witte’s grant is a follow-on to a 2023 Flinn award meant to improve an imaging system he developed that can accurately map electrical signals in the brain more effectively than existing methods.
“I envision this disruptive modality to not only improve DBS treatment for Parkinson’s disease but also provide unique clinical value for epilepsy patients who depend on accurate electrical brain maps for both diagnosis and guiding treatment decisions,” said Witte.