Friday, July 22
12–12:45 p.m. Presentation by Al Smith
12:45–1 p.m. Questions & Dialogue
Medical Sciences Building Auditorium, Room 274
Simulcast at Pollard Auditorium, Carle Foundation Hospital
Register here for in-person attendance by 4 p.m., Monday July, 18_
or
Join via Zoom Call-in: https://go.illinois.edu/RISESeminars
Carle Illinois College of Medicine offers students an expansive innovation landscape in which to develop creative solutions to health care problems. In three short presentations drawn from his own work, Carle Illinois student Al Smith will discuss the methods he has used to pursue medical innovation as a student researcher and touch on aspects of Carle Illinois’ research ecosystem and resources, presented through the lens of three project initiatives.
- Innovation Pathway Grant – Inexpensive Neurosurgical Navigation for Global Neurological Emergency Treatment
Emergency neurosurgical intervention is common in patients with traumatic brain injury or acute hydrocephalus. In low-resource settings, particularly those without access to neurosurgeons, better methods to access care for traumatic brain injury is a matter of life or death for many patients. This project would improve access to care by developing and implementing a novel neurosurgical navigation device that provides responders and clinicians with enough guidance to perform treatment for these emergencies without the need for a neurosurgeon.
- Computer Science Ph.D. Research – Automated Fundoscopy for Expanded Access to Eye Exams
This project aims to broaden access to ophthalmic eye exams to diagnose conditions like diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and more by automating the exam procedure using robots and then implementing delivery in pharmacies and grocery stores. The project involves novel approaches to computer vision, robotic path planning and safety, and medical imaging.
- Approaching Medical Innovation and Research from an Entrepreneurial Perspective – Automated GCS, Nephra, and More
Drawing on his experiences as a founder of the student incubator AxisMED and his prior involvement with an incubator in St. Louis called MEDLaunch, Smith will discuss a broad range of disruptive technologies and innovations that have employed entrepreneurial approaches to medical innovation. Smith will use examples to demonstrate how medical students and professionals can use entrepreneurial approaches to advance medicine and describe how failures can lead to successes down the road.
Al Smith is a third-year M.D.-Ph.D. candidate at Carle Illinois who is starting his first year of the Computer Science Ph.D. program at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research field is surgical technology and robotics, focusing on automation and assistance in the operating room. He also participates in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem at UIUC as one of the founders of AxisMED, a student-run incubator designed for students at UIUC and Carle Illinois College of Medicine to experience what it takes to be an innovator.