Newswise — From innovative dental implants, to helping people with aphasia, or developing coatings for industry, students at North Dakota State University, Fargo, are being rewarded for their entrepreneurial efforts. Bison Microventure, a team of 15 NDSU students, won first place and $5,000 for their novel dental implant design as part of the Innovation Challenge ’12 at NDSU. A project involving aphasia therapy for professionals received a second-place award, and a student-designed coating system for ship hulls won third-place honors.
More than 60 students in 21 teams participated in the competition, part of the third annual Innovation Week held by NDSU and the NDSU Research and Technology Park. David Wells, NDSU professor in industrial manufacturing engineering and member of the Innovation Week steering committee, said entries exceeded expectations.
The program supports interdisciplinary entrepreneurship among students. “The caliber of projects was outstanding and truly reflects the first-class research and innovative work being done on the NDSU campus and in the research park,” said Tony Grindberg, executive director of the NDSU Research and Technology Park.
First Place Innovation Award: Porous Ceramic Dental ImplantBison Microventure is developing a porous ceramic dental implant for people who cannot use traditional titanium implants. Because the implant is made from a type of inexpensive ceramic that has bone-like properties, it has the potential to reduce rejection rates, help patients heal faster and be more cost-effective.
“With this funding, we can pump out more data and research to take this project to the next level,” said team captain Erica Pfarr, a senior biochemistry and molecular biology major at NDSU. “The next step will be writing a grant proposal to make this idea into an option for those seeking a dental implant.”
The team includes 15 NDSU student engineers who build the implants and student scientists who grow cells on the implants and analyze that growth. The formal structure for their work is through an elective course to help students develop skills in translating research into commercial products or processes, creating and maintaining intellectual property and applying micro-technologies to medical and dental devices. Over the past five years, the idea for the dental implant has evolved as students build on the research of their predecessors in the class and test new hypotheses.
Second Place Innovation Award: Aphasia Therapy for ProfessionalsCollege student Trisha McDonald is working to turn her personal experience with aphasia into a therapy innovation. Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder that impairs a person’s ability to process language. The Aphasia Therapy team at NDSU, including McDonald, a university studies major from West Fargo, N.D., and Amanda Beller, a psychology major from Morganville, N.J., won second place and $2,500 in the Innovation Challenge.
McDonald and Beller’s project centers on at-home therapy for professionals who have aphasia. Their research revealed that at-home therapy products on the market now are geared for a broad range of ages and aphasia-related language challenges. Their proposed therapy includes a collection of software that uses word recall and association, audiovisual matching and complex sentence patterns to help rehabilitate people who have lost complex language skills. Their goal is to help professionals who have aphasia return to work.
McDonald’s inspiration came from personal experience and from following former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ ongoing recovery from a head injury. When McDonald was a freshman, she had a series of strokes. “Initially, I lost my ability to speak and to put sentences together,” she said. “It was embarrassing for me to talk to new people, and it took a while for me to regain my vocabulary.”
McDonald, who is interested in business, approached Beller, who plans to study neurology in graduate school, about partnering with her. To solidify their idea, they reviewed case studies, researched recovery times and interviewed a neurologist, speech pathologists and a computer programmer. Their next step is to develop a prototype.
Third Place Innovation Award: Coating System for Ship HullsRajan Bodkhe and Chavanin Siripirom, NDSU graduate students in coatings and polymeric materials, won third place and $1,000 for a coating system to prevent the growth of marine organisms on ship hulls. This growth, known as biofouling, causes speed reduction, loss of maneuverability, as well as increased fuel consumption, pollution, dry-docking frequency and voyage time.
“I wanted to make a novel polymer architecture with precise control over design parameters and chemical functionality to design marine coatings,” Bodkhe said. The coating system was also one of six final entries for an American Chemical Society fall 2011 graduate competition.
About NDSU’s Innovation Challenge and Innovation WeekNDSU’s Innovation Challenge encourages NDSU students to develop projects that solve real-world problems, advance technology and create new business opportunities. Students must present their research and innovations in poster and oral presentations to a group of business and industry experts. NDSU’s annual Innovation Week includes sessions to help students learn what resources are available for aspiring business owners and to interact with members of the business community. The NDSU Research and Technology Park also supports the annual NDSU Research and Technology Park Youth Entrepreneurship Academy to foster business entrepreneurship among high school students.
About the NDSU Research and Technology ParkThe NDSU Research and Technology Park and Technology Incubator are home to fast-paced, high-growth companies that promote technology-based economic development in North Dakota. To operate within the park or Technology Incubator, a company must be involved in the advancement and development of new technology, be willing to establish a working relationship with NDSU and work in one or more of the following technology fields: material sciences, biosciences and life science technology, information technology, nanotechnology, advanced manufacturing and sensors/micro-electronics.
About North Dakota State UniversityNorth Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota, USA, is notably listed among the top 108 U.S. public and private universities in the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education’s elite category of “Research Universities/Very High Research Activity.” As a student-focused, land grant, research institution with more than 14,000 students, NDSU is listed in the top 40 research universities in the U.S. without a medical school, based on research expenditures reported to the National Science Foundation. At the 55-acre NDSU Research and Technology Park, faculty, staff and students work with private sector researchers on leading-edge projects. www.ndsu.edu/research
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