Seizure stopper, bacteria detector take UMD honors

Monday, May 12, 2008

Seizure stopper, bacteria detector take UMD honors

University recognizes top marketing ideas in $50K Business Plan Competition

by Lindsey Robbins | Staff Writer

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Marketing plans for new technologies to halt seizures through cooling, detect food contamination through color-changing packaging and dehumidify homes through waterfalls were winners in the University of Maryland’s $50K Business Plan Competition Friday.

Among the winners were two teams comprising students from the Hillman Entrepreneurs Program, which is a project that involves the College Park university and Prince George’s Community College, and a team comprising mostly Duke University graduate students and one Maryland alumnus.

Geared toward promoting the marketing of new ideas and university-created technologies, the contest awards prizes ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 to participants with the best concept plans. Each of the top three teams won $10,000.

Cerene Biomedics, the Duke team, proposes a plan for distributing a microchip that is implanted on certain surface areas of the brain and cools them during an epileptic seizure, thus stopping the seizure. The team predicts the device could tap into a $6 billion market, which includes about 300,000 patients who don’t respond to regular treatment. Cerene received first place in the young alumni category.

Hillman students were involved in creating the Liquid Desiccant Waterfall, which won in the undergraduate category. The device, which its creators say is more energy-efficient than an air conditioner, uses salt to pull moisture from air inside a house and then releases it outside — all while resembling a decorative waterfall. The dehumidifier is part of the university’s Leaf House project, which won first place nationally and second place internationally in the International Solar Decathlon in October.

The group that created the dehumidifier, LDTech, worked on the project as part of its studies in the Hillman Entrepreneurs Program. The program provides disadvantaged students with full scholarships to the community college and partial scholarships to the university in hopes of fostering the next generation of technology entrepreneurs.

University bioengineering professor Peter Kofinas helped his graduate student with the plan that took first place in the faculty and graduate-student level. Their invention uses polymer coatings inside packages to measure hazardous bacteria levels around food and register these through a variety of color changes. Kofinas said his invention differs from others by detecting the bacteria-signifying molecules rather than the bacteria itself.