2013 Press Releases
UCC students spark biomedical innovation
Engineering and medical students from UCC are working together to produce innovative design solutions to real-world clinical problems.
Student solutions were showcased in a 'Dragon's Den' style challenge event which took place in the Cork University Hospital recently (6 December 2013), before a panel of independent industry experts. The event, sponsored by Stryker Ireland, culminated with the presentation of the John Francis Burke Perpetual Award for Biomedical Innovation as the first prize to the winning interdisciplinary team.
The team that scooped this year’s award invented 'Amputaid', a first-aid kit which optimally cools amputated fingers for up to 24-hours enabling their safe transport to a hospital for replantation. Not only does the Amputaid device provide optimal cooling, it promises to leave no mess to clean up, provides an instant cooling solution and is low cost. Amputaid was developed by an interdisciplinary team of medical and engineering students; namely Ronan Hand, Tadhg Lambe, Ronan O'Brien, Mobin Jamal and Ben Thistlewood under the mentorship of Mr Jason Kelly, a consultant in plastic surgery at Cork University Hospital.
This is the third year of the award-winning module, developed by Dr. Pádraig Cantillon-Murphy and John McSweeney at UCC School of Engineering, which couples medical and engineering students at UCC with consultant clinicians across Cork's teaching hospitals to develop innovative solutions to real-life clinical needs.