BME Leads New Medical Device Design Lab To Give Students Hands-on Experience

This semester, the University of Arizona College of Engineering opened the Peter and Nancy Salter Medical Device Design Lab, which provides engineering students with a space to design, build and experiment unlike anywhere else on campus. BME is the lead for the new space, with associate professor Urs Utzinger and assistant professor Philipp Gutruf developing the space.  Utzinger and Gutruf are also developing an associated course to give BME and other engineering students the opportunity to design and create medical devices.

“There is no other space like this anywhere on campus,” Gutruf said. “Students have access to equipment only found in top research labs of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and the biosciences – and it’s all in one space.”

The facility features research-grade equipment that students are using to design and construct medical devices which require the interplay of many disciplines. Students can fabricate their own printed circuit boards, build custom enclosures for wearable devices, perform sophisticated image analysis using specialized computers, and conduct chemistry and biology experiments. Equipment includes a laser cutter, a water jet, a 3D printer of various technologies and a full set of electrical analysis tools. Infrastructure such as a biosafety and chemistry hood allows students to handle research-grade cells and chemicals.

Construction of the space, and the development of the corresponding course, was made possible by a $1.5 million gift from University of Arizona alumnus Peter Salter, and his wife, Nancy Salter.