Last week, IEM Innovation Week hosted the 12th Annual Minnesota Neuromodulation Symposium (Neuromod), 24th Annual Design of Medical Devices Conference (DMD), Medical Device Innovation Workshop, and Pediatric Breakthrough Event, with participants from as far away as South Africa, South Korea, Peru and the United Kingdom.
The week-long event was filled with poster sessions, keynote presentations, and lectures on a wide variety of topics in many different disciplines, including non-invasive neuromodulation for mental health, cryopreservation in biodiversity, AI in neuromodulation, and orthopedics and rehabilitation technology.
As medical and healthcare problems become more complex, IEM Innovation Week offers a premier platform for discussing and advancing the medtech innovation ecosystem within Minnesota and beyond. IEM Innovation Week 2025 further marks the state of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota as a global leader in medtech innovation, fostering translational research, academic-industry collaboration, startup and technology commercialization, workforce development, and statewide economic growth.
Congratulations to all our poster and competition winners:
DMD Emerging Medical Innovation Valuation Competition
- Grand Prize: "Twistomy", Steven Moulton, University of Colorado and Ezalife, LLC
- 2nd: "Bimpo Chair", Dane Rustad, Founder, Bimpo Chairs LLC
- 3rd: "UltraTracTM", Dori Jones, Co-Founder & CEO, AcQumen Medical
DMD Student Showcase Competition
- Grand Prize: "IntimaSeal by IntimaVision", Student Design Team from Rice University- Abby Chae, Aiman Rahman, Korie Rudin, and Sradha Ravishankar
- 2nd: "Perfusion Refill Indicator for Monitoring Efficiency", Student Design Team from University of Pennsylvania- Majd Ayyad, Shriya Boyapati, McKenzie Davis, Sophie Gu, and Sophie Klessel
- 3rd: "RenoAlert: A Rapid Acute Kidney Injury Diagnostic Device", Student Design Team from Georgia Tech- Chris Le, Pratyusha Manda, Abinand Parthasarathy, and Mahima Vaidya
DMD 5-Minute Pitch Competition
- Grand Prize: "Development of an Endoscopic Brain Tumour Resection Device Capable of Concurrent Tissue Cauterization", Matteo Bomben, University of Toronto
- 2nd: "Development of a Novel Intraosseous Needle using a Large Scale 3D Imaging Study", Anuk Dias, University of Minnesota
- 3rd: "Human Centered Design: Veteran testing of a mobile app with augmented reality for phantom limb pain", Tonya Rich, Minneapolis VA Health Care System
Neuromod NeuroTech Venture Pitch Competition
- 1st: LunOSA
- 2nd: Ocelot Neurotherapeutics
- 3rd: UpStim
Neuromod Poster Award
- Basic Neuroscience/Overall: “Multiscale model of primary motor cortex circuits predicts evoked response to transcranial magnetic stimulation”, Zhihe Zhao, University of Minnesota
- 1st in Neuropsychiatric Disorders (Tied): “Investigating Sex Differences in Fear Generalization of Rodents in the Platform-Mediated Avoidance Task”, Jason Chang, University of Minnesota
- 1st in Neuropsychiatric Disorders (Tied): “VTA GABA neurons encode and integrate valence”, Margaret Stelzner, University of Minnesota
- 1st in Parkinson's Disease (Tied): “Sleep stage decoding in Parkinson’s Disease using pallidal deep brain stimulation leads”, Justin Bueno, University of Minnesota
- 1st in Parkinson's Disease (Tied): Mehrta Farsad “Computationally Efficient Method to Predict Axonal Pathway Activation with Deep Brain
Stimulation”, Mehrta Farsad, University of Minnesota - 1st in Epilepsy: “Deep Brain Stimulation Suppresses Low Gamma Oscillations in the Anterior Nucleus of the Thalamus Measured With Medtronic’s Percept PC for treatment of Refractory Epilepsy”, Zachary Sange, University of Minnesota
- 1st in Spinal Cord Injury: “Personalizing Stimulation Settings for Restoring Function After Spinal Cord Injury”, Emily Haag, University of Minnesota
- 1st in Addiction: “Sex-Dependent Changes In Negative Emotions In Alcohol Use Disorder After Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation”, Mumtaz Saidin, University of Minnesota
Special thank you to all IEM Innovation Week, Design of Medical Devices Conference, and Neuromodulation Symposium sponsors and keynote speakers!
