Elevated Designs: Printing Innovation in Three Dimensions

Think about how frustrating paper printers can be — there are jams, spills and alignment problems galore. Now add another dimension of complexity, and you begin to understand why 3-D printing isn’t as simple as it may seem. Two undergraduate students are learning this lesson firsthand while launching their company, Elevated Designs. They provide 3-D-printing […]

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U Alum Wins $150K to Develop Ligament Repair Device

U alum and inventor Dolly (Holt) Casper’s company NovaBio Technologies won the grand prize and $150,000 at the international OneStart competition recently. NovaBio, formerly known as Ligadon, is developing a coil-shaped and biodegradeable device that holds together tendons and ligaments like a “Chinese finger trap.” It distributes tension, decreasing risk of reruptures and the need for […]

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Cinluma wins Grand Prize at Bench-2-Beside Competition

More than 20 teams of University of Utah students participating in the university’s fifth annual Bench-2-Bedside competition unveiled their projects Wednesday night at the Utah State Capitol Rotunda. Judges rated the medical innovations, and the results are in. Cinluma won the $15,000 grand prize. The team of Kris Loken, Timothy Pickett, Brian Charlesworth, Jennwood Chen, […]

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Two Student Medical Startups Vying for $1 Million in Prizes

Two University of Utah student medical startup companies are heading to one of the nation’s top business plan competitions this month. The companies, Veritas Medical and 6S Medical, will be competing for more than $1 million in prizes in the 15th Annual Rice Business Plan Competition at Rice University, April 16-18. The winner of the […]

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Minimalist Bottle Openers … and Beyond

Mechanical engineering student Carter James has been designing and selling real products for almost as long as he’s been studying at the U. He started his first project designing a minimalist bottle opener several years ago. James raised $11,409 for that product through crowdfunding and fulfilled about 450 orders. “Most bottle openers are pretty much […]

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U-Play Piano Makes Learning Virtual

Lindsey Wright, a doctoral student in piano performance at the U, is making learning the piano easy and affordable for elementary school students in Utah. Wright observed that Utah schools were cutting the funding for music programs. In response, Wright created U-Play Piano, an online computer-based piano curriculum that is much more affordable and engaging […]

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Engineers Invent Mechanical Leech

Mechanical engineering students Jessica Kuhlman, Scott Ho and Andy Thompson developed a mechanical leech to replace biological ones used in post-surgical tissue reattachment treatment. Addressing biological leech drawbacks, the cost-effective device reliably reduces blood pooling and pressure, precisely injects anti-coagulants into the therapy site, and eliminates the “ick” factor. The mechanical leech was named runner-up […]

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