Scientific innovation and research is constantly making impact in the medical community, and the University of Toledo is contributing to the story.

The University of Toledo will host a biannual conference next week to review projects conducted through the National Science Foundation’s center on our campus. The conference will be held at College of Engineering in the Thomas and Betsy Brady Engineering Innovation Center on April 5 & 6, 2017 starting at 7:30 a.m. both days and end at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday and 1 p.m. on Friday. It will include presentations from students, faculty and staff as well as keynote speakers.

The Center for Disruptive Musculoskeletal Innovations (CDMI) was founded by Drs. Jeffrey Lotz, University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and Vijay Goel, University of Toledo (UT) July, 2014 through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) program. This center is one of only four I/UCRC’s in the area of health and safety. It joins industry members and faculty from the University of Toledo and UCSF to define and fund industry-inspired, precompetitive research projects and other collaborative initiatives. The CDMI maintains itself as a primary source for fundamental research on clinical outcomes and cost data, implant materials, tissue engineering, biosensors, implant testing protocols, and novel imaging in the musculoskeletal domain.

“To have an NSF Center is very prestigious,” said Dr. Vijay Goel, CDMI co-director and bioengineering and orthopaedic surgery professor. “To see that the faculty are working side-by-side with industry to translate research discoveries is exciting, and allows us to accelerate our efforts to create value for society.”

Through the CDMI, graduate and undergraduate students are assigned to funded projects, work on research, and provide quarterly progress reports during scheduled meetings. Industry members choose to become mentors for the some of the funded projects, thus giving the students valuable interaction and guidance as they work towards completing the research projects.

One of the exciting aspects of the bi-annual CDMI meeting is that the students will be presenting the CDMI project updates to the CDMI Industry Advisory Board (IAB). The IAB currently consists of high-level executives in 8 businesses or organizations in the medical field. This will be a unique training experience for many of our students since they will be able to meet and interact with many of the industry executives and get immediate feedback on their projects, Goel said. Some of the IAB members will be from companies like Depuy Spine, Orthofix, K2M, Zimmer, Osteonovus, Spinal Balance, and Medipol University, Turkey.

The best part about being involved in the conference, according to one of our masters students, is that the industry executives are receiving their resumes and seeing firsthand all the work the students have been doing. Over 85 students, faculty, and industry representatives will attend.

For more information, visit the CDMI website at www.nsfcdmi.org

Adapted from story by Lindsay Mahaney