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OUR HISTORY & MISSION

IDEA Labs is a bioengineering design and entrepreneurship incubator founded in 2012 at Washington University in St. Louis. Students, faculty, staff, and St. Louis entrepreneurs team up to tackle unmet needs in healthcare delivery and clinical medicine.

Our group's objectives include:

  • To develop a culture of innovation at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
  • To teach engineering and medical students the skills and processes needed to invent and implement new biomedical technologies
  • To develop novel medical devices targeting unmet clinical needs

With the guidance of a clinician mentor and technical advisors, teams of 3-4 engineering students and 1 medical student work towards 5 milestones:

  1. Develop a deep understanding of one or more clinical problems by shadowing in local clinics and the WUSTL teaching hospitals
  2. Brainstorm and vet a panel of designs based on patient and physician needs, but also on the intellectual property and regulatory environments
  3. Develop a specific design implementation on paper and on engineering software
  4. Prototype, test, and redesign a series of increasingly realistic prototypes
  5. Take preliminary steps to patent and/or commercialize their device

 

TIMELINE OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR

(see calendar for specific dates)

Timeline

Publicity

Check out our story in the Record!

WU Engineering Blog