I N N O V AT I O N Teaching Biomedical Technology Innovation as a Discipline Paul G Yock 1 2 3 4 Todd J Brinton 1 2 3 Stefanos A Zenios1 2 4 Recently universities in the United States and abroad have developed dedicated educational programs in life science technology innovation Here we discuss the two major streams of educational theory and practice that have informed these programs design thinking and entrepreneurship education We make the case that the process of innovation for new medical technologies medtech is different from that for biopharmaceuticals and outline the challenges and opportunities associated with developing a discipline of medtech innovation THE INNOVATION MANDATE We appear to have reached a political consensus that innovation is the key to winning the future 1 This focus raises a central question for educators What is the role of our schools and universities in producing innovative thinkers and doers Both in America and abroad universities are experimenting with new programs and courses to teach innovation Within the life sciences there is particularly strong traction in the area of biomedical technology innovation in which a number of interesting new training initiatives are being developed and deployed In this Commentary we trace the evolution of these new initiatives toward what we see as an emerging academic discipline TEACHING INNOVATION IN CONTEXT For purposes of this discussion we define innovation as inventiveness put to use 2 that is discoveries that lead to technologies or services that are taken up in the marketplace Over the past 20 years two major streams of educational theory and practice have come together to help motivate programs that teach innovation The first is design thinking 3 4 The basic premise is that there is a repeatable process for creating innovative solutions that is based on a clear understanding of how people experience needs The approach has been most highly developed in the area of product design Led by highprofile initiatives at Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Stanford University and elsewhere design education programs have been initiated in many universities over the past two decades In general these programs have grown up in engineering schools sometimes in collaboration with art or architecture departments There is a central emphasis on project based learning to teach the fundamentals of the opportunity idea prototype test cycle Typically these courses are also structured around teams with a focus on mixing different skill sets in the team composition The second major stream is entrepreneurship education 5 6 The premise is that students from any discipline can benefit from an introduction to the skills and problem solving approaches used by entrepreneurs Substantial funding from organizations such as the Kauffman Foundation and the National Collegiate Innovators and Inventors Alliance NCIIA has fueled the growth of programs that teach entrepreneurship These programs often employ experts from outside of the university tapping adjunct faculty from the business world to teach courses and mentor students In general the emphasis in entrepreneurship classes is on skills and knowledge that are used further downstream in the innovation path from those taught in design classes Design teaching starts with a need and ends with an idea for a product or service entrepreneurship classes start with a product or service and teach the tools necessary to commercialize these ideas 1 The Program in Biodesign Stanford University Stanford CA 94305 USA 2Department of Bioengineering Stanford University Stanford CA 94305 USA 3 Department of Medicine Stanford University Stanford CA 94305 USA 4Graduate School of Business Stanford University Stanford CA 94305 USA Corresponding author E mail yock stanford edu FUELING BIOMEDICAL INNOVATION With these two major educational trends providing nourishment innovation training programs in the area of medical devices and diagnostics medtech are flourishing The design methodology of needs finding and inventing lends itself well to medtech innovation projects medical device development in particular fits beautifully into the brainstorming and rapid prototyping cycle that is at the heart of a classic design approach Medtech innovation cries out for interdisciplinary team building mixing physicians engineers and business trainees In fact team based training programs in biomedical device design have provided low hanging fruit for universities that are striving to develop genuine collaborations across departments and professional schools From the standpoint of teaching entrepreneurship medtech represents an interesting and manageable sector to analyze There is a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem in medtech that has until just recently been dominated by U S enterprises The system consists of a relatively large number of venture backed start up companies with one major path to a financially successful exit in mind ultimate acquisition by a small group of big multinational companies The fusion of these two favorable environmental factors has spurred the launch of training programs in biomedical technology innovation that integrate design thinking and commercialization into a cohesive process The ad hoc Biomedical Engineering Innovation Design and Entrepreneurship Alliance BME IDEA has a membership of over 100 university programs in North America most of which have been created in the last decade 7 This rapid growth has also been fueled by substantial financial and strategic incentives Beginning in 1989 the Whitaker foundation deployed more than 700 million in North America in helping to spawn some 50 new departments of biomedical engineering with a focus on developing technologies for health 8 Importantly the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology requires substantial design experience for accreditation of undergraduate engineering programs so that many of these newly created departments have found it productive to create training programs in biomedical technology design By the time the Whitaker Foundation came to its sunset in 2006 the Wallace B Coulter Foundation 9 had begun to supply major new funding for technology translation in biomedical engineering in the form of its Early Career and Translational Research Programs The Coulter Foundation has recently endowed five U S universities www ScienceTranslationalMedicine org 20 July 2011 Vol 3 Issue 92 92cm18 1 Downloaded from stm sciencemag
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