Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign

🟢 Happening this weekend! Hear what medtech leaders are thinking about the current innovation landscape in the US! 👇

🟢 How did an applied mathematician evolve into a health technology leader relentlessly focused on solving big problems in healthcare? Get ready to hear from Gary Guthart on November 17 in our next From the Innovator's Workbench event! In conversation with Innovation Fellowship alumna Katie Blevins, he will share what sparked his interest in robotics and healthcare, as well as the challenges of pioneering a brand new field. RSVP now 👇🏾 Link in the comments.

🗞️What’s better than one Stanford Biodesign-affiliated innovation being named one of TIME’s Best inventions of 2025? Try four inventions! 🏆 Earflo: Matthew Oldakowski and Jozef Bartunek developed their concept for a non-invasive treatment of otitis media with effusion during their time as Stanford Biodesign Global Faculty Trainees in 2018. The product, which is modeled on a sippy cup, also incorporates elements of  gamification to better engage their young users. Check out an interview with the team on our website. Link in the comments👇🏾 🏆 Teal Wand: As a 2017-18 Biodesign Faculty Fellow, Avnesh Thakor worked on a solution to enable at-home vaginal sample self-collection for cervical cancer screening to get around the barriers of discomfort, fear, time limitations, and finances that prevent many women from staying up-to-date with their screening. In May 2025, the product received FDA approval. 🏆 Sequel: As Stanford athletes, co-founders Amanda Calabrese and Greta Meyer could not find tampons that suited their highly-active routines. As Stanford engineers, they designed one. They won Stanford Biodesign’s Robert Howard Next Step Award in 2019, which helped the pair to refine their prototype, improve their brand identity, and hone their strategy for launch. 🏆 Throne: After founding a medical device company out of the Biodesign Innovation Fellowship to treat patients suffering from chronic venous insufficiency, 2009-10 alum Fletcher Wilson turned his attention to expanding public restroom access through pop-up smart bathrooms. Congratulations to these audacious innovators! We are so incredibly proud of you all! 👏👏👏👏 #biodesigner #innovationeducation #biodesign #healthtech

🟢 Meet our new cohort of Faculty Fellows! Our 2025-26 Stanford Biodesign Faculty Fellowship (BFF) kicked-off last week with 12 faculty from Stanford Medicine departments/divisions including radiation oncology, anesthesiology and pain medicine, pediatrics, cardiovascular medicine, surgery, otolaryngology, neurology, neurosurgery, and emergency medicine! For their introductory session, our BFF faculty leads David Hindin, Kunj Sheth, and Ashley Seehusen facilitated a deep dive into the  biodesign innovation process through team activities and case studies: from drafting need statements, defining need criteria, and filtering needs to brainstorming new concepts, and early prototyping. Over the next 8 months, in tandem with their full-time jobs, our BFFs will apply these skills consistently as they work to identify important innovation opportunities within or outside their departments. Thanks to alumni Michael Chen, Zakia Rahman, Ted Wilson, and Brian Han who joined the kick-off to share their experience with the new cohort! CC: John Byun, Rachel Herdes, Charles Brown, Guson Kang, Lisa Marie Knowlton, Matthew Luchette, Peter Meaney, Sam P. Most, Louise Sun, H. Westley Phillips, Maia Winkel, Kyan Younes.

🟢 Looking forward to the keynote discussion at #DeviceTalksWest tomorrow featuring our director, Josh Makower! He will join Kayleen Brown to offer his perspective on the state of the MedTech industry, the path forward for early-stage innovation, and how entrepreneurs can thrive in today’s ecosystem. Are you attending the 2025 #DeviceTalksWest forum? Let us know! 🔗 Register at West.DeviceTalks.com

In many design courses, prototyping is initiated after a problem has been identified and several solutions have been conceived. A new article from Stanford Biodesign describes a different approach, “prototyping the need”, the utilization of prototyping exercises earlier in the design process to help students expand their understanding of the problem.  Read the article to learn more about this technique and lessons from a pilot with undergraduate students. Link 👇 Congratulations to authors Meghana Nerurkar, Lyn Denend, Ross Venook, Ravi Dy Pamnani, Joseph D Towles, PhD, and Dan Azagury!

🎙️“You have a lot of people who are just not feeling well and figuring out what that means and which of those not feeling well symptoms they’re reporting equates to a potential heart attack is almost like trying to figure out the end of the story at the beginning before a doctor is even involved.” - Maya Yiadom Biodesign Faculty Fellowship alumni Maame Yaa "Maya" A. B. Yiadom and Gabrielle Bunney were the first guests on Innovation Fellowship alum David Hindin's podcast, First in Human. Maya and Gabrielle discussed the challenge of identifying potential heart attack patients within a 10-minute window when they arrive at the emergency department, and the solution they’ve developed, SmartCare AI, which aims to empower registration clerks at the ED to make the right calls about who needs an early ECG. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Congratulations to Mike Mussallem on this richly deserved honor recognizing his outstanding contributions to the medtech community! 👏 👏 👏

👏 Congratulations to 2018 Global Faculty Trainee Matthew Oldakowski and the team at Earflo! Matt initially pursued the need for Earflo during his time in the Stanford Biodesign GFIT program together with Jozef Bartunek. The dedicated progress since then has been impressive. Way to go!

What is the current state of the digital health ecosystem? What do VCs and investors think about AI in healthcare? These were some of the questions our Innovation Fellows explored in a session with Marta G. Zanchi, founder of Nina Capital and a digital health advisor for Stanford Biodesign, during her recent visit to campus. Marta, an entrepreneur-turned-VC, reviewed the latest developments and statistics on #digitalhealth, walking our fellows through key topics and case studies, including the importance of having a human-in-the-loop, integrating digital health solutions into existing workflows, verticalized care, as well as the opportunities and challenges in building around new payment models. Thank you Marta for making the time to share your invaluable experience and insights!