Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign

He's an engineer, a clinician, an inventor, an educator, a corporate executive, and much more! Our final Innovator's Workbench event of the 2024-25 academic year will feature a Biodesign powerhouse: Todd Brinton, MD. Join us on Wednesday, April 16 for the Tracy Lefteroff Memorial Event sponsored by Fogarty Innovation and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. ??Registration link in the comments ??

Another exhilarating edition of our 3-day course "Managing innovation from the inside out" is in the books! Every year, we bring executives and senior managers responsible for driving innovation within their large health technology organizations to Stanford for a fun, focused, intense introduction to the need-driven biodesign innovation process. Away from their day-to-day activities, this executive education program allows them to develop a whole new perspective on identifying and assessing new opportunities for innovation. This year was no exception. Our participants arrived ready to roll-up their sleeves, unpack the different elements of the process, and apply it to problem areas they had identified. Their energy and engagement was palpable throughout the 3 days and we’re confident they’ll keep the momentum as they head back to their organizations. Thank you for making this week one of the highlights of our year! #innovationeducation #healthtech #biotech

Innovation thrives on collaboration! Well done to the Stanford Biodesign Digital Health team for the many alliances you're forging to advance the digital health ecosystem ?? #innovationeducation #healthtech #digitalhealth #globalbiodesign

Together with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), Stanford Biodesign convened 30+ leaders and change makers across policy, investment, philanthropy, industry, and entrepreneurship in Washington, DC, last week, for an in-depth discussion on building more sustainable enabling environments for locally-led health technology innovation. The group discussed venture financing and policy frameworks, digital public infrastructure, health-tech design education, and other key levers that drive sustainable innovation. Stanford Biodesign’s Gordon Saul, Krista Donaldson, and Mohit Singhala highlighted the East Africa Biodesign program, while TBI shared their work on digital health strategy in Guyana. Together, the group formulated a path to creating a supportive ecosystem for local innovators in emerging health markets. A huge thank you to TBI for collaborating with us on this roundtable and to the remarkable leaders and organizations that joined us! #healthtech #gobalbiodesign #innovationeducation

This year's Innovator's Workbench series is celebrating Stanford Biodesign’s innovation stories. Our final event features a Biodesign powerhouse: Todd Brinton, MD. Join us on Wednesday, April 16 for the Tracy Lefteroff Memorial Event sponsored by Fogarty Innovation and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. ??Registration link in the comments ??

On his recent visit to Stanford University, University of Global Health Equity vice chancellor Philip Cotton stopped by Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign. He engaged in discussions with Stanford Biodesign’s executive director Gordon Saul and Krista Donaldson, director of innovation to impact,?about the East Africa Biodesign program. This global collaboration between UGHE, the University of Rwanda, Kenyatta University, and Stanford Biodesign graduated its first cohort of fellows last October. The second cohort is underway in Kenya and Rwanda in continuance of the mission to enhance health outcomes and equity for underserved populations in East Africa by training local innovators to develop appropriate, accessible, and sustainable health innovations. The visit was also an opportunity for Dr. Cotton to see some of the technologies developed by Stanford Biodesign alumni, and to engage with some of the current fellows. Thank you for visiting Dr. Cotton! We look forward to our continued collaboration on East Africa Biodesign!

Having a great time mentoring the Biodesign Faculty Fellows (BFF's) this year! Here we are trying out some experimental devices. An enthusiastic group with creative ideas makes for a great experience! Ehsan Adeli Zakia Rahman, MD, FAAD Meghan Stawitcke

With 5 startups, 2 IPOs, and 2 acquisitions under his belt, D. Michael Ackermann has mastered the art of leading with vision, speed, and empathy. At last week’s Innovators Workbench event, he shared insights from his journey as an entrepreneur and Innovation Fellowship alumnus —how the Biodesign process shaped his approach, the lessons he learned transitioning from devices to biopharma, and why embracing a team with diverse perspectives is key to tackling complex challenges. Here's some takeaways from the conversation moderated by Lyn Denend: ?? Biodesign principles apply to biopharma innovation. Michael highlighted how the need-driven approach is just as critical in biotech as in medtech: “What we do best, the core of Biodesign, is deeply understanding patients, physicians, regulators, payers—the entire ecosystem. That has nothing to do with whether the solution is a device, a drug, or a service.” ?? Speed and iteration matter—even in pharma. While drug development is often seen as slow and rigid, Michael stressed the importance of applying rapid prototyping principles from medtech: “No one even pauses to think that you can prototype a device, it's just intuitive. In the drug world, you can pencil your mechanism, do the math, and also prototype formulations (...) In the device world, it never works at first, you can keep iterating. To some extent, you can do that in the drug world too.” ?? Tackling unmet needs leads to breakthroughs. He recounted the founding of Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, which started by recognizing that Demodex blepharitis —an eye condition caused by microscopic mites that affects millions— lacked a patient-friendly solution: “I was at a conference and walked by a poster that had something that looked really disturbing on it: a parasite that lives in your eyelids (...) and I thought, ‘that can't be good’, this might be pretty druggable. We realized no one had ever tackled this head-on, so we started digging into the need.” That insight led to a novel treatment that has now reached nearly a quarter-million patients. ?? Culture matters: Innovation thrives in the right environment. Michael emphasized that the best teams are diverse in thought, collaborative, and resilient: “Every quarter, there’s some ‘impossible’ challenge that could either kill the company or push it forward. The best teams thrive on that.” Thank you to everyone who joined us in person and online! Missed the event? ??? Watch the full recording on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/e6ZFnx2b And don’t miss our final Innovators Workbench event of the season on April 16, featuring Todd Brinton! RSVP link in the comments. ??

Last week, students from the MED232 course, “Global Health: Scaling Health Technology Innovations in Low Resource Settings”, presented their projects at the 2025 Stanford Global Health Conference. The course is a joint offering with the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, led by Michele Barry, Krista Donaldson, and Anurag Mairal. This conference brings together?students and faculty across Stanford, and leaders from nonprofits, academia, and industry, to learn about the work being done by prominent organizations in global health. It also allows attendees to meet and hear from Stanford students with strong interest in health equity. This year’s conference focused on the barriers faced by underserved communities in accessing health technologies. The presentations of the seven student teams from the MED232 course highlighted their collaborations with various organizations: through their projects, they gained an understanding of the needs these organizations serve, the barriers to scaling their proposed solutions and how to address them. The projects presented included: ?? A school-based, technology-guided approach to mental health screening and service provision for young students living in rural parts of the U.S. to prevent suicide (in collaboration with the Rural Health Behavior Institute). ?? Analysis of the socio-cultural challenges that inhibit breastfeeding technology adoption in Kenya to provide insights for the portfolio expansion of a new breast pump innovation developed by Maziwa: a Kenya-based health technology company focused on empowering mothers to balance work and breastfeeding. ??Analysis of the current challenges to scaling the AI-powered initiative “Healthcare from the Eye” in underserved communities in the U.S. This initiative was created by Topcon and Microsoft to enable pre-screening for systemic and neurological eye diseases through a robotic, rapid, non-invasive eye scan. ?? Evaluating the drivers and barriers to implementing innovative rapid diagnostics in low and middle-income countries in Africa with a high burden of Malaria, using Abbott Diagnostics solutions as case studies. ?? A proposed framework for scaling handheld echocardiograms and digital stethoscopes to address rheumatic heart disease in India in collaboration with Edwards Lifesciences and PATH. ??Exploring the overarching challenges to increasing access to stroke care in India, using Gravity Medical’s devices as a case study to recommend possible solutions. ?? Recommendations for scalable digital education solutions that align with Uganda’s need for effective use of medical devices and low-cost online training in device maintenance (in collaboration with Intuitive Foundation/Engineers Without Borders). Congratulations to all student teams for their work and thank you to the participating organizations and to all reviewers for your feedback! #innovationeducation #globalhealth #biodesign #healthequity

Congratulations to the 4th graduate cohort of Stanford BioE375/MED236 "Biodesign and Entrepreneurship for Societal Health"! We could not be more proud of you! Our students developed innovative solutions and scalable business models to tackle several grand health challenges: * Tackle food waste and improve access to healthy foods to prevent chronic Illness * Improve access to mobility aids for millions of post-stroke patients * Improve the continuity of care for mental health patients and digital connectivity of Community Based Healthcare organizations * Improve dental care for seniors and prevent pneumonia * Tackle misinformation and loneliness for diabetic patients to improve health outcomes Thank you to our dedicated amazing teaching team who go above and beyond in improving the class in each new iteration! Michelle de Haaff, Pedram Afshar, and Narges Baniasadi. and our brilliant TA :Sopharoth Ith. Many thanks for the judging panel today for your invaluable feedback to our students: Prof. David Maron, Gordon Saul , Joshua Tamayo-Sarver, MD, PhD, FACEP, FAMIA, Safa Rashtchy, Youssef Kalad, and Kyle Murphy. Thank you to the big community of guest speakers and mentors who worked along our students in the past ten weeks and provided guidance and support in their projects including but not limited to Maria Ansari MD FACC, Elizabeth Klodas, Kyle Murphy, R.J. Briscione, Sanchit Jain, David Zamir, Magi Richani, Obi Felten, Paul Jhun, Emily Zhen, Ethan Fong, Jake Rothstein, Prof. Christopher Gardner, David Butler, Yetsa A. Tuakli-Wosornu MD, MPH, Jie Feng, Ph.D, Corey Rovzar, PhD, DPT, Aydin Zahedivash, Delphine Huang, Jean Paul Laurent, and more.. Thank you to Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign and Emergence Program @ Stanford University Teams for supporting this class!