Medical Product Manufacturing News (MPMN) has named 30 of what it calls the “best and the brightest young people” under age 30 in the medical device industry. Four of those innovators are working in O&P development, as follows:
Photograph of Bomkamp and the Pain Free Socket courtesy of West Virginia University, M.G. Ellis.
Katherine Bomkamp, BS, 22, developed the Pain Free Socket, which has the potential to eliminate phantom limb pain by using thermal biofeedback. She invented the prosthesis at the age of 16 after visiting Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC), Washington DC. She is also the CEO of Katherine Bomkamp International. Among the awards she has received for the prosthesis are the ASM Materials Foundation Award, a United States Air Force Award, and the Popular Mechanics Next-Generation Breakthrough Award. In 2012, she became the youngest person to present at the Royal Society of Medicine’s Summit on Innovation. In 2010, she was inducted into the National Gallery for America’s Young Inventors.
Ryan Farris, PhD, 29, an engineering manager at Parker Hannifin, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, was chosen because of his advancements in the use of exoskeletons to help individuals with disabilities. He began working on exoskeleton technology as a student at the Vanderbilt University Center for Intelligent Mechatronics, Nashville, Tennessee. He is a co-inventor of the Indego® exoskeleton and is leading the device’s development as part of the Human Motion & Control unit at Parker Hannifin. The team behind the Indego exoskeleton won a 2013 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Innovator Award.
Shiva Nathan, 15, designed and built a low-cost modular prosthetic arm and hand that is brainwave-controlled, called the Arduino Prosthesis. The high school student from Westford, Massachusetts, told Design News that he designed and built the device after a cousin in India lost both her arms in an explosion, and decided to improve upon the prostheses she was using. Nathan won top prize in the student division in the 2013 National microMedic Contest for medical applications and products.
Photograph of Sengeh courtesy of the Lemelson-MIT Program.
David Moinina Sengeh, MS, 28, is a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Biomechatronics Group, Cambridge. A native of Sierra Leone, he found that many survivors of that country’s civil war did not wear prosthetic limbs because they were ill-fitting and uncomfortable. In response, he developed and patented prosthetic technology that merges magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and 3D printing for customized prosthetic interfaces that reduce socket pressure. He is continuing to refine his inventions and won the 2014 Lemelson-MIT National Collegiate Student Prize Competition.
