Summer Course for Undergraduates

Medical Device Innovation Experience for Undergraduates (MDIEU)

This summer course is an exciting opportunity for you to participate in the medical device innovation process through an experiential learning project where you will be developing a real medical device. MDIEU is a course through the Earl E. Bakken Medical Devices Center whose mission is to facilitate medical device innovation and commercialization.

MDIEU takes place over eight weeks of the summer and is open to currently enrolled University of Minnesota Twin Cities undergraduate students in any major. The course targets students who are interested in medical technology, eager to gain device development experience, and who seek leadership and team-based experiences. The course will train you to become a medical device innovator by teaching you the medical device design process. This includes how to understand clinical needs, how to design and build early-stage prototypes of medical device concepts, and how to work with a clinician to co-develop a concept, all while working on a real-world medical device that solves a clinical problem.

Along with weekly lectures and guided tutorials on topics ranging from hands-on CAD and building electronics to patent searching and how to FDA-classify your device, you will practice what you have learned by working in a team on a real medical device development project with an experienced technical mentor and a medical professional.

Need More Information about the Medical Device Innovation Experience for Undergraduates (MDIEU)? Please direct any questions about the MDIEU course to the director, Prof. Will Durfee, [email protected], or the MDIEU course lead instructor, Cara Herbers, [email protected].

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Course Logistics

The 2022 course has begun and we are no longer accepting new applications

The course sessions will be on Tuesday evenings from 5:00 to 7:30 pm, starting on June 7, 2022 and ending on July 26, 2022. Sessions will include a lecture component and a team meeting component. To participate in the course, you must be available to attend in-person for at least seven of the eight sessions, and preferably for all eight. Attendance at the first session and last session is mandatory. The detailed course schedule will be posted mid-May.
The course does not carry UMN course credit, but could lead to you being a named inventor on a patent application, or a co-author on a paper, plus course participation looks great on your resume.
For Summer 2022, we will accept up to about 50 students into the course, depending on the number of projects in the course.
You will be assigned to a project, with each project having about five students. Just before the course starts, you will be provided with information about the projects and will be able to submit your project preferences. We cannot guarantee that you will be assigned to your top project choices. The good news is that all of the projects will be awesome.

2022 Projects

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Abdominal Entry Aid

Surgeons accessing the abdomen need to be able to lift the abdominal wall during laparoscopic surgery to gain access to internal sites. Existing tools include clamps, towel clips and a plunger-like device. However these devices can damage skin, cause vascular injuries and risk displacing bowels. They also don’t work well for all patient body types.

Dr. Mattson, a Fellow in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health at the University of Minnesota and clinical champion for this project, needs a better tool for grasping the skin to pull the abdominal wall out of the way. The team developed a solution that is low-cost, distributes the force over a large area reducing the risk of tissue damage, and is easy to remove once the procedure is over.

Team Members: Carter Doolittle, Evan Gill, Abigail Kyllo, Samantha Schmitt, and Gracine Sime
Clinical Lead: Jordan Mattson