Summer Course

This summer course is an exciting opportunity for you to participate in the medical device innovation process through an experiential learning project where you will be developing a real medical device. The Medical Device Innovation Experience for Undergraduates (MDIEU) is a course through the Earl E. Bakken Medical Devices Center whose mission is to facilitate medical device innovation and commercialization.

MDIEU takes place over eight weeks of the summer and is open to currently enrolled University of Minnesota Twin Cities undergraduate students in any major. The course targets students who are interested in medical technology, eager to gain device development experience, and who seek leadership and team-based experiences. The course will train you to become a medical device innovator by teaching you the medical device design process. This includes how to understand clinical needs, how to design and build early-stage prototypes of medical device concepts, and how to work with a clinician to co-develop a concept, all while working on a real-world medical device that solves a clinical problem.

Along with weekly lectures and guided tutorials on topics ranging from hands-on CAD and building electronics to patent searching and how to FDA-classify your device, you will practice what you have learned by working in a team on a real medical device development project with an experienced technical mentor and a medical professional. The results of your project could lead to new intellectual property that will be assigned to the Regents of the University of Minnesota for filing.

If any of you are planning to be on or near campus this summer, the Bakken Medical Devices Center (BMDC) holds a summer course (MDIEU) for undergraduates to gain experience working in teams with clinicians to take clinical needs through early-stage medical device prototyping (in many cases teams will file intellectual property disclosures and test prototypes within the clinic). The application portal closes the last week of April.

New this year is an opportunity to gain course credit (1-credit) for participating in the BMDC summer course. To earn the 1-credit, you need to first apply to the summer course (using the website linked above), and if selected for the course, you can then request a permissions number to register for Section 2 of BMEn4151 (Physician-Inspired Engineering Solutions, PIES). The one caveat is that you may enroll in only one section of BMEn4151 in the Fall 2025 semester, so if you plan to pursue additional PIES research this Fall, then you won't be able to also register for the 1-credit summer course section. 

Any questions, feel free to email Prof. Johnson or Paul Rothweiler.