Medical Innovations Draw Top Honors to Student TeamsWinning Prestigious 50K Competitions on Both Sides ofAtlantic

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 8, 2004--Dot.com, e-business and also wireless startupopportunities may possess drawn a lot with the MBA buzz inside current years, nevertheless health-related technology will be proving to be your real winner if this comes to innovation along withcreativity as separate teams from MIT and also Cambridge College are usually honored on June tenat Guildhall throughout London regarding his or her award-winning achievements because criticalfield.

For the sixth yr inside a row, any medically-oriented team won the top award throughout MIT'sprestigious 50K Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition, once the year student-run challenge made toencourage students along with researchers within the MIT community to act about their ownenergy, ideas and ability in order to produce new ventures. Your MIT team was selected pertainingto its Active Joint Brace, a new portable, low-cost, non-invasive device that may help people performactions of day-to-day living as well as self-therapy. The Particular product is focused with 10 millionAmericans together with disabilities whom have difficulty lifting light objects and need assist withday-to-day activities.

Within times of the particular MIT award announcement, Cambridge School Entrepreneursannounced which the really best winner of its 50K Pound business Plan Competition has been theactual team at your rear of a fresh organization referred to become able to as bSure, which hasdeveloped a novel technologies to be able to test your blood regarding expectant mothers pertainingto fetal genetic abnormalities, like Down's syndrome. The Actual technology developed by bSure ismuch less invasive and can be performed as well as analyzed much earlier and rapidly whencompared with present methods.

"When I had been an undergraduate, I got fascinated from the many complicated but elegantscientific and engineering achievement: a person's body," stated Dr. Nora Szasz, now fromCambridge University Or College along with leader of the team that will took the extremely besthonor in the Cambridge's competition. "Towards the finish involving my PhD in MIT insidebioengineering, I started to adopt enterprise classes since I wanted to observe inventions attain theindustry along with assist patients." Currently, assessments regarding genetic disorders - whichusually affect one inch 20 babies -- need procedures that bring the one in 200 potential formiscarriage along with need 3 weeks regarding results. bSure's proprietary technology enables yourdetection of genetic disorders within hours from a easy maternal blood test. Based on Szasz, a lotmuch more than 4 million ladies can benefit from bSure, which anticipates prospective revenuesregarding $900 million by 2008.

The MIT team behind Active Joint Brace furthermore sees major market as well as healthcarepotential. "I am passionate about bringing innovative biomedical technologies from bench tobedside," said Hocking Cheng, the person in the actual award-winning MIT 50K team and a formerbiomedical entrepreneur now enrolled in the Harvard-MIT Division associated with WellnessSciences and also Technology/MIT Sloan Biomedical Enterprise Program. "When I has beenexamining technologies getting developed with MIT final year, your Active Joint Brace projectseemed a new promising platform addressing large unmet health-related needs. I am glad in which

present sentiment inside your investment neighborhood favors this technology domain. I want todetermine patients reap the rewards of this technology."

Mira Sahney, an MIT Sloan student that will represent your Active Joint Brace team at the Londonevent, agreed. "Beyond your prospective monetary rewards involving founding a successful business,we're personally driven from the capability of our goods to improve total well being and aidindividuals across the world," the girl said.