CBID Team Wins Track Award @ MIT 100K Competition

On Thursday, February 10th 2011, the CBID MSE team won the Executive Summary Life Sciences Track Award at the MIT 100K Competition. The MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is a year-long educational experience designed to encourage student and researchers in the MIT community to act on their talent, ideas, and energy to produce tomorrows leading firms. There are three contests in the competition: Elevator Pitch, Executive Summary, and Business Plan. Together, they are the MIT $100K.

The teams representative Haim Gottfried presented the executive summary for their BOSS Harvester device, which is a minimally invasive tool for extracting bone graft, which enables the surgeons to obtain bone graft easily and safely.There are over 350,000 spinal fusion procedures performed each year in the U.S. and over 1.5 million worldwide. In these procedures, surgeons traditionally rely on bone extracted from the patient?s hip and used as a bone graft to promote spinal fusion. Failure to fuse can lead to life-threatening complications and additional surgery. The bone graft extraction procedure is painful for the patient and time-consuming for the surgeon. In some parts of the world, bone grafting is the only option available. In the U.S., synthetic substitutes are available as a way to avoid the extraction procedure. However, these substitutes cost hospitals over 2 billion dollars every year and are not as effective as bone grafts. Bone grafts have the best surgical outcomes, fewer complications and are less expensive than alternatives. The only factor discouraging surgeons from using them is the extraction procedure.

The BOSS Harvester device will save hospitals the enormous costs of synthetic substitutes and deliver the best care to patients worldwide.

The teams clinical sponsors are:
Dr. A Jay Khanna , MD, Associate Professor, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery,Johns Hopkins University; Clinical Director,C enter for BioEngineering, Innovation and Design (CBID), Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University ?Dr. Lee H. Riley III, MD, Director, Division of Spine Surgery, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Johns Hopkins University?Dr. Khaled Kebaish, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Johns Hopkins University.