Convening & Learning Program:
MIT-CIMIT Medical Device Design Course

For the last 9 years CIMIT has sponsored MIT Mechanical Engineering’s Medical Device Design course and this year we have expanded the scope to offer the course jointly with electrical engineering. (MIT numbers 2.75 & 6.525.) The course brings together Boston-area physicians and MIT engineering students in developing new medical devices.

Beginning in September, clinicians whose projects are selected will team with a small group of students and course staff in an aggressive, but efficient 14 week design process. Firstly, the team will develop a detailed understanding of the clinical need and a resulting set of design specifications. Then they will follow a deterministic design process to create strategies, concepts and prototype solutions for testing. Final prototypes will be presented in December to a clinical and medical device industry audience. CIMIT provides for each team to receive a prototyping budget. Particularly successful projects will be invited to continue on into a spring course for further development.

CIMIT affiliated clinicians are invited to submit applications to work with teams of MIT mechanical and electrical engineering students to create prototype solutions. We are actively seeking projects with mechanical and/or electrical challenges.

Download full details (PDF)

Submit Clinical Challenge

For more information, visit the MIT 2.75 website or contact one of the following:

• For general course questions, please contact Prof. Alexander Slocum.
• For specific proposal questions, please contact Nevan Hanumara.
• For questions pertaining to CIMIT, please contact Dr. Rajiv Gupta.

Robopsy Invented by 2007 MIT 2.75 Team Led by Dr. Rajiv Gupta

Robopsy, a robotic device to assist radiologists performing soft tissue probe insertions, was invented by an MIT 2.75 team led by CIMIT Investigator Rajiv Gupta, MD. The team was awarded the 2007 MIT $100K prize, the world's leading entrepreneurship competition, and the first-place award at the 2008 ASME Innovation Showcase.

Robopsy will help interventional radiologists perform soft tissue probe insertions with greater speed and accuracy and reduced complications and physician strain. The device is a small, patent-pending, lightweight, inexpensive, disposable, radiolucent, telerobotic tool which adheres directly to a patient inside the CT bore. Guided by the radiologist in the control room, it remotely grips, orients and inserts a standard biopsy needle, or other probe, while permitting simultaneous imaging of the needle location. The entire system is CT scanner independent and portable, packing away into a single case.

Benefits for patients: more precise interventions, earlier diagnoses and fewer complications.

Benefits for doctors and hospitals: more consistent performance, better imaging equipment utilization and less stressful procedures.

Past MIT 2.75 Class Projects

class of 2012-2013

In partnership with Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, CIMIT affiliated clinicians worked with teams of MIT mechanical and electrical engineering students to create prototype solutions solving clinical and energy challenges with mechanical engineering.