The first round of iPREP Biodesign for 2021 has come to an end with great outcomes achieved across the board! The round was met with excellent feedback by students and partners, opened doors to many prospective employment opportunities and even resulted in job offers for some students!
Five local healthcare and agricultural companies took on a team of PhD students to help them solve an unmet need. This round saw 15 PhD students spend 7 weeks working on an industry problem and receive weekly mentorship by Perth Biodesign Directors on learning and applying the Biodesign process along the way.
The five companies were:
A local medtech company originating from the inaugural Biodesign medtech course, working to develop improved fetal monitoring during labour and delivery. The student team was tasked with consolidating existing data into a publishable format, grant writing, literature review, data analysis and predictive model development. This team consisted of Garima Chauhan (UWA), Lillian Toomey (Curtin) and Mohamed Almobarak (Curtin).
Singular Health A Perth-based medtech company working to develop tools to improve health literacy and medical planning processes through medical imaging visualisation and analysis. Their software presents CT and MRI scans into fully interactive and completely immersive 3D models within a virtual reality platform. The student team was tasked to assist in the development of their learning platform known as ‘Virtual Anatomy’ which provides content for teaching human biology at secondary and tertiary levels. This team consisted of Martina Mariano (UWA) and Rahul Choudhary (UWA).
An Australian company that provides the technology, systems and solutions that help people lose weight, keep it off, and improve their metabolic health. Key project deliverables were a feasible design for their digital health platform known as ENABLE and the generation of new intellectual property. This team consisted of Indra Roux (UWA), Pratima Jain (Curtin), Thomas Favory (UWA) and Karl Svatos (Murdoch).
MK Mentoring
A local business working within the WA agricultural sector striving to create a process that allows farmers to rapidly determine how to improve resilience, sustainability and returns from agricultural operations. The student team was tasked to develop a methodology that allows farmers to compare the relative benefits of the many available options on how to advance and build robustness into their operations. This team consisted of Lili Vu (UWA), Edi Wiraguna (UWA) and Jaslin Kalsi (Curtin).
Gilmay Farm Enterprises
A local company and farm owner looking to predict soil organic carbon in Western Australian agricultural soils to inform farmers about soil health and production yields. The student team was tasked with using satellite and machine learning methodology to quantify pasture/crop biomass, vegetation coverage and soil organic carbon levels over large areas of varying soil types and climatic conditions. This team consisted of Yongyang Sun (Curtin), Maria Purnamasari (UWA) and Mazvita Chiduwa (Murdoch).
iPREP Biodesign is a new partnership between iPREP WA and Perth Biodesign, funded by an XTEND WA grant. The program aims to support the training of PhD students in innovation using the Stanford Biodesign methodology. Participation in the program provides PhD candidates with excellent networks in industry plus skills in project management, teamwork, leadership and the Biodesign process as well as the opportunity to solve real problems in an industry setting.
