innovation and discovery story and photos by Susan Reich
The Game Changers They’re driven. They’re visionary. They thrive on challenges—in the classroom, in the laboratory and in their personal pursuits—and they could change the face of medicine as we know it. They’re the students of IMED (Innovation Medicine), a groundbreaking new program designed to prepare future physicians for careers at the intersection of medicine and technology, where they will channel their clinical experience and engineering talent into lifesaving and life-enhancing biomedical innovations. Here, three M1 students from the inaugural cohort of the IMED program talk about the paths and passions that led them to the COM—and their hopes and dreams for the future.
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equipment and how the body worked. I BLOW TO THE realized that I had a lot more curiosity HEAD clarified about the field of medicine than I’d ever everything for Emil had about mechanical engineering.” Klosowiak. The Klosowiak was released from the Northwestern Unihospital 24 hours later. But the knock on versity mechanical the head that had caused his brain bleed engineering underhad also changed his priorities. grad’s “aha!” moment “I realized that I didn’t want to arrived unexpectedly be a mechanical engineer sitting behind in March 2012, after a a computer every day,” he explains. “I nasty accident during wanted more human interaction. So I a collegiate cycling event. decided to pursue a career in medicine Hunched over the handlebars of his Emil Klosowiak, a triathlete and competitive cyclist who worked and bioengineering to combine my desire racing bike and hurtling forward at top as a bicycle mechanic in his youth, has always had a passion for to work with people with my passion for speed, he’d been jockeying for position with tinkering and problem solving. “The thought of applying my passion science.” the cyclists in the front pack when his front for innovation to the field of medicine in order to help people is invigorating,” he says. By fall 2012, Klosowiak had wheel bumped up against the back wheel of switched his major to biomedical another bike. What happened next is still a engineering—a move that would eventually lead him to the College of mystery to Klosowiak, who remembers nothing about the collision Medicine and its Innovation Medicine program. that left him lying on the side of the road with severe lacerations on “I spent a post-college gap year in Poland on a Fulbright Fellowhis face and knees, a concussion and a cerebral hemorrhage. ship, conducting research on synthetic materials for implants that were When he regained consciousness, he was dazed, disoriented and being developed to promote spinal cord regeneration in humans,” he only dimly aware of the wailing of the ambulance siren as he was notes. “So when I learned about IMED, I was very excited. I knew that I rushed to the emergency room. But as he was cleaned up and subjected to a seemingly endless series of X-rays and CT scans at the hospital, wanted to work clinically as a physician, but I also wanted to augment my clinical work with innovation in design and engineering. Working his mind began to clear and his curiosity about the medical profesclinically, I can affect the patients who come through my door. But as sion was piqued. an innovator, I will have the potential to help far more people.” “This was my first major experience with medicine and health This desire to help more patients by working at the intersection care, and I found it fascinating,” he says today. “Because of my engiof medicine and technology is a common sentiment expressed by neering background, I was asking a lot of questions about the medical Charlotte ter Haar, a former college cross-country athlete who hopes to quality for the Boston Marathon next year, settled on medicine as a vocation in high school, but then she fell in love with design and innovation as a biomedical engineering and design major at Northwestern University.
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Meet the Innovators of IMED
the members of IMED’s inaugural student cohort. These 12 budding physicians and future IMED students will be positioned to be the “game changers” of tomorrow—the interdisciplinary innovators who will use their clinical insights and experience to inform their research and product development as they harness technology to solve real-world healthcare problems. “Interdisciplinary research and development has produced some of the most exciting medical advances of our time,” notes COM Executive Dean Dimitri Azar, MD, MBA. “By grooming our IMED students for dual careers as physicians and biomedical innovators, we can close the knowledge gap that often exists between the clinician and the engineer or research scientist and help pave the way for the development of new medical devices, products and systems that will be truly life-changing.” IMED student Charlotte ter Haar believes that the new program will be instrumental in bridging the knowledge divide that has hindered biomedical innovation in the past. “We need physicians who are engaged in and excited about medical innovation, but also knowledgeable about what it takes to go from needs identification to product design and development,” says ter Haar. “There can be a disconnect between researchers who aren’t familiar with the clinical context and clinicians who understand the clinical needs, but may not understand the design process. The IMED program appealed to me because it provides a systematic approach to innovation in clinical practice.” Ter Haar’s own path to IMED began during her high school years. “Some people close to me had medical issues,” she confides. “I saw them go through a lot, but they received amazing medical care. That was inspiring to me.” But it wasn’t until she began her studies at Northwestern University—first as a premed major and then as a bioengineering and design major—that ter Haar had her own epiphany. “Although I was pretty sure that I wanted to be a doctor, I decided to use my college years to explore other careers that I thought I could be interested in,” says ter Haar, a cross-country athlete who shares Klosowiak’s appetite for athletic challenges and hopes to qualify for the Boston Marathon next year after running the Twin Cities Marathon this fall. “My explorations as an undergraduate confirmed that I wanted to go into medicine, but I fell in love with biomedical design and innovation along the way.” Ter Haar also fell in love with Klosowiak after a mutual friend suggested that they get to know one another. Later, when Klosowiak, by then her fiancé, told ter Haar about the IMED program, she jumped at the chance to be a part of it. “I think engineering and research can have a huge impact on patient care and biomedical innovation,” ter Haar reflects. “But I like the personal service and human interaction of medicine, which is why I’m drawn to clinical work. IMED allows me to pursue both.” Ter Haar is particularly interested in the IMED curriculum slated for the summer between her M1 and M2 years—a time many students consider to be their “last free summer” before medical school becomes a year-round endeavor. “This coming summer, we are doing a clinical immersion program alongside bioengineering students,” she notes. “It’s an opportunity to gain clinical experience and also to learn how to identify clinical needs. As an undergrad in biomedical engineering, I never had a chance to participate in the needs identification process because the client already had a problem that they wanted me to solve. This early stage of the design process is really important and challenging—and it will be essential in my future career as a physician innovator.” IMED student Gardner Yost developed an interest in medical devices as a biology undergraduate at Cornell University.
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LTHOUGH THEY’RE A DIVERSE GROUP, the 12 future physician innovators in IMED’s inaugural cohort share a common goal: to save lives and alleviate human suffering by using their medical knowledge and engineering aptitude to solve real-world healthcare problems. University of Pennsylvania bioengineering graduate Anna Brzezinski worked on cardiothoracic surgical device development and medical device design and development for da Vinci® Surgical System add-ons. A University of Illinois double-major in molecular and cellular biology and psychology, Benjamin Follman has research interests in computer modeling of glucose metabolism, factors of psychopathology and the genetics of thyroid disorders. Yale University mathematics and philosophy graduate Raahil Kajani studied the use of stem cells to treat neurological diseases and evaluated the effectiveness of angioplasty vs. stents in heart patients. Northwestern University biomedical engineering graduate Emil Klosowiak worked on the development of a synthetic hyrdrogel scaffold for spinal cord regeneration as a Fulbright Fellow in Poland. Loyola University graduate Eric Kowalski synthesized nanoparticles and fabricated an all-inorganic photovoltaic cell at the Naval Research Lab.
Northwestern University communication sciences and disorders graduate Savan Patel joined a health startup to gain experience in product development.
Northwestern University biology graduate Michael Rooney joined the IMED program to move beyond problem-solving at the clinical level and tackle medical issues on a larger scale. Northwestern University biomedical engineering graduate Pamela (Nina) Scalise worked on design projects that addressed clinical needs and researched the use of stem cells for knee cartilage repair and regeneration. University of Washington bioengineering and biochemistry graduate Cody Schopf conducted research on the use of stem cells to rebuild the heart after infarction. Northwestern University biomedical engineering and design graduate Charlotte ter Haar worked on a biosensor to detect mercury and arsenic in water as a Whitaker International Fellow in Switzerland. Cornell biology graduate Gardner Yost focused his UIC graduate studies in bioengineering on the development of improved diagnostics for implantable heart pumps for patients with heart failure. MIT mechanical engineering graduate Zaid Zayyad worked on the development of several medical devices while completing his master’s in biomedical engineering at Northwestern University.
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Gardner Yost, a member of the U.S. men’s eight-man rowing team that won a gold medal at the 2012 Under 23 World Championship in Lithuania, is “fascinated by the entrepreneurs and innovators who have figured out how to integrate their products into the anatomy of a human being in order to solve a medical problem or effect a cure.”
“I took a class in medical devices and products at Cornell during to carry my interest in medical devices forward into medical school.” my senior year and absolutely adored it,” says Yost, another accom IMED Co-Director and Clinical Associate Professor of plished athlete who represented the U.S. on the Men’s Eight rowing Bioengineering Miiri Kotche, PhD, notes: “During their first year, IMED team that won a gold medal at the 2012 Under 23 World Championstudents attended a series of lunchtime seminars, where they listened ships in Lithuania. to case studies presented by physicians and engineers with product “I was fascinated by the entrepreneurs and innovators who had development and biotech startup experience. In doing so they gained figured out how to integrate their products into the anatomy of a insights into opportunities, entrepreneurial concerns and regulatory human being in order to solve a medical and intellectual property issues.” problem or effect a cure,” he recalls. “I still As the IMED track moves forward, find the idea of building something externally Program Co-Director and Associate Dean for and then implanting it internally enrapturTechnological Innovation and Training, Bellur ing. That course at Cornell led me to pursue a S. Prabhakar, PhD, remarks: “In the coming master’s degree in bioengineering at UIC.” year, they will gain firsthand experience When he first heard about about the in medical product development—from IMED program, Yost was working on a graduneeds assessment to prototyping—as they ate project at the UIC Innovation Center’s collaborate with bioengineering, industrial Medical Accelerator for Devices Laboratory design and marketing students and faculty (better known as the MAD Lab) with his from various colleges at UIC on projects graduate advisor, Thomas J. Royston, PhD, sponsored by corporate or internal clinical head of the Loan and Rick Hill Department of partners.” Bioengineering—a joint department of both Their experience will culminate with a the COM and the College of Engineering. capstone design project that they will choose “Dr. Royston was collaborating with and develop, which Klosowiak expects this MAD Lab Director Dr. Miiri Kotche, Dr. Belsummer’s upcoming clinical immersion prolur Prabhakar and Dean Azar on the developgram might help them to choose. Meanwhile, ment of the Innovation Medicine program,” this first cohort is growing ever more cohesive recalls Yost. “So I knew about IMED pretty as the 12 students move into their M2 year. early on, and it seemed like such a natural fit. “It’s really rewarding to be a part of this Innovation Medicine (IMED) students may I had been working on the development of a community of peers who are interested in bewell be the “game changers” of tomorrow — non-invasive system to evaluate the function ing clinicians and medical innovators,” says the interdisciplinary innovators who will use their of left ventricular assist devices that had been ter Haar. “It will be so cool to have an IMED clinical insights and experience to inform their implanted in patients with advanced heart reunion in 15 years to find out what everyone research and product development as they harness technology to solve real-world healthcare problems. failure—and this seemed like the perfect way is doing!”
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