Brace, Undergraduates' Invention Places 2nd In National Competition

Madison, Wisconsin - Chris Brace, PhD, assistant professor in the Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, led a design team of undergraduates from the Department of Biomedical Engineering to a second place win at this year's Collegiate Inventors Competition. Brace is also a UW Carbone Cancer Center member of the Imaging and Radiation Sciences Research Program.

Students Patrick Cassidy, Sean Heyrman, Alex Johnson and Anthony Sprangers' winning invention, BarriereASAP, is a special, thermo-reversible barrier used to protect healthy tissue while nearby cancer tissue is being removed. This same invention was awarded 3rd place at the 2011 BMEStart national competition.

The annual Collegiate Inventors Competition, which was founded by the non-profit organization Invent Now, was held on November 14. Participants presented to a panel of judges comprised of inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and representatives from the event's sponsors, the Abbott Fund, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Invent Now began the competition 21 years ago to promote innovation, recognize young inventors and scientists, and reward students for addressing the problems of today's world. The competition attracts creative and ingenious thinkers from science, technology, engineering and mathematics backgrounds.