“Benchtop to Bedside”: Qld Students to Take on Medtech Challenge

Image: Yohaann Ghosh (left) with colleague and fellow past Bionics Challenge winner, Dr Joe Dusseldorp (supplied by Yohaann Ghosh)

Young Gold Coast innovator, Yohaan Ali Ghosh wears many hats: from dental trainee at Griffith University, to Research Fellow in Integrated Prosthetics and Reconstruction at Sydney’s Chris O’Brien Lifehouse cancer treatment centre, to co-founder of the BIOTech Futures mentorship program.

In 2022, Yohaann and a team of fellow students also took out a MAIC Queensland Student Bionics Innovation Challenge award for a world-first bionic jaw device, an achievement he credits as a professional turning point.

“Winning the award not only gave us critical financial support, but also the expert mentoring necessary to help kickstart the journey of translation from a simple idea that we came up with as friends, into something clinically practical and commercially feasible,” recalls Yohaann.

“The guidance, resources and industry connections provided both throughout the Challenge and beyond have been crucial in assisting us, as clinicians and scientists in training, to make a tangible impact in the field of bionic surgical devices.

“The next steps for our surgical device involve making a formal start-up business structure and applying for additional funding to take our invention from benchtop to bedside!”

Now, the next crop of Queensland university students has their shot at support to accelerate their own projects, thanks to the 2024 MAIC Queensland Student Bionics Innovation Challenge.

It is an opportunity Yohaann said he would highly recommend other students looking to fast-track their idea relating to a medical bionic device, implant or treatment should jump at.

“I would encourage students from all educational disciplines to consider applying to the Challenge, where you will be supported to build on your ideas, working through the whole pathway from conceptualisation to commercialisation,” says Yohaann.

“The resources provided by Bionics Gamechangers Australia on intellectual property, commercialisation and the translational research journey are the among the best in the country available to early-career inventors and clinician-researchers.”

Entries for the 2024 MAIC Queensland Student Bionics Innovation Challenge are now open, closing Monday, 23 September.

Are you a Queensland university student ready to take your shot? Apply here!