Demirci and Schachter Receive Top Prize at Annual Drug Device Conference

(L to R) Utkan Demirci, PhD, and Steven Schachter, MD

On May 17, Utkan Demirci, PhD, of BWH's Bio-Acoustic MEMS in Medicine (BAMM) Laboratories, and Steven Schachter, MD, chief academic officer in the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), were awarded the $100,000 prize at the Epilepsy Therapy Project Second Annual "Shark Tank" competition in Miami, which was hosted during the annual Antiepileptic Drug and Device Trials XII Conference. The Epilepsy Foundation awarded the grand prize to Demirci, Schachter, and their colleagues for their innovative product idea to help those living with epilepsy. The prize money received will help move their product design to the next step of development so that it can one day benefit patients.

The team proposed a disposable microfluidic chip platform technology that could be used at the point-of-care to immediately detect antiepileptic drug levels from a finger-prick sample of blood.  With this handheld technology, the test can be done anywhere with the help of a cell phone to produce a read out in just 15 minutes. For patients and their doctors dealing with managing epileptic seizures, the technology, unlike traditional blood tests, provides answers fast, so management can occur faster. And at a projected cost of less than a few dollars per test, the chip has the potential to be quickly adopted to help doctors provide their patients with optimal treatment.