2024 Contest Now Accepting Entries!

Submit your best new product ideas for a chance at $25,000, other great prizes, and global recognition. If you already are registered, log in to access the entry form. Otherwise, click here to get started.

Help build a better tomorrow

Since Tech Briefs magazine launched the Create the Future Design contest in 2002 to recognize and reward engineering innovation, over 15,000 design ideas have been submitted by engineers, students, and entrepreneurs across six continents. You can also join the innovators who dared to dream big and build a better tomorrow by entering this year’s contest.

Read About Past Winners’ Success Stories

Over the past 20 years, many innovators have used the recognition afforded by the contest to advance the development and marketing of their technologies. We highlight some success stories of past winners who have brought their inventions to the marketplace.

Click here to read more

A ‘Create the Future’ Winner Featured on ‘Here’s an Idea’

Spinal cord injury affects 17,000 Americans and 700,000 people worldwide each year. A research team at NeuroPair, Inc. won the Grand Prize in the 2023 Create the Future Design Contest for a revolutionary approach to spinal cord repair. In this Here’s an Idea podcast episode, Dr. Johannes Dapprich, NeuroPair’s CEO and founder, discusses their groundbreaking approach that addresses a critical need in the medical field, offering a fast and minimally invasive solution to a long-standing problem.

Listen now

Thank you from our Sponsors

“At COMSOL, we are very excited to recognize innovators and their important work this year. We are grateful for the opportunity to support the Create the Future Design Contest, which is an excellent platform for designers to showcase their ideas and products in front of a worldwide audience. Best of luck to all participants!”

— Bernt Nilsson, Senior Vice President of Marketing, COMSOL, Inc.

“From our beginnings, Mouser has supported engineers, innovators and students. We are proud of our longstanding support for the Create the Future Design Contest and the many innovations it has inspired.”

— Kevin Hess, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Mouser Electronics

Follow Create the Future

?Screen Fast and Cheap Bacteria Detection

Votes: 32
Views: 24594
Medical

Every year food-borne bacteria cause thousands infections in humans and animals. Outbreaks of E.Coli and Salmonella commonly occur in meat, vegetables and processed food products. The most recent and the deadliest recorded E.Coli outbreak caused 39 deaths and over 3500 reported cases of poisoning in May and June 2011 in Germany. An effective method for disease detection and prevention is still missing, mostly due to long incubation times and a high operation cost associated with conventional methods. The most widely used method for bacteria detection, the standard plate count, takes from 24 to 48 hours, due to the time needed for bacteria to grow detectable colonies. This time is too long for most applications in the food industry, especially when food products need to be delivered and sold fresh. Faster methods including PCR or labeled detection and fluorescent imaging are too expensive to be widely applied.

?Screen is the needed MEMS rapid pathogen screener for food-borne illnesses. It has a potential to improve health standards at the consumer level by increasing sensitivity, keeping the cost down and testing time short. This technology will allow screening of up to 100% of food produced in food processing plants before it is delivered to the consumer, thus, for the first time eliminating the risk of infection. ?Screen is portable and ready to use in any conditions. ?Screen is highly accurate, can detect as low as a single bacteria, small, fast, and approximately 50 times cheaper than the established, currently used detection methods. ?Screen can detect any chosen type of bacteria from whole blood or predefined fluid. The device size is less than 1”x1”x0.5”, the cost is as low as 1$ per test.

?Screen operation is simple. The user injects a sample of blood into the inlet chamber. Further on, the device processes the sample automatically. Using dielectrophoesis, any present bacteria is separated from the large blood components e.g. red and white blood cells. For bacterial detection we use nanoribbon/nanowire field effect transistors, which are well explored label-free nanosensors, capable of detecting low concentrations of biomolecules i.e. disease markers to provide point-of-care diagnostics [Stern, Vacic et. al Nat. Nanotechnology 2010]. In order to achieve selectivity and specificity of the detection and eliminate false-positive response, the sensors are functionalized with bacteria specific antibodies [Stern, Vacic et. al Small 2010].

?Screen is designed to integrate innovative bacteria separation and demonstrated state of the art detection methods. The whole bacteria separation system has been modeled using the COMSOL Multiphysics software. Sub components for detection have already been successfully prototyped and are currently under testing. The core part of ?Screen is a silicon nanoribbon FET sensor fabricated using CMOS compatible process using optical photolithography and a microfluidic two-step separator for bacteria separation from the whole blood.

?Screen is a miniature device for detecting low number of bacteria under half an hour for only 1$. The ultimate goal is the detection of several hundreds of diseases. It has a potential to revolutionize diagnostics of bacterial diseases.

  • Awards

  • 2011 Grand Prize Winner

Voting

Voting is closed!

  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Monika Weber
  • Type of entry:
    team
    Team members:
    Monika Weber, Yale University
    Christopher Yerino, Yale University
    Hazael Montanaro, Yale University
    Kane Siu Lung Lo, Yale University
    Mark Reed, Yale University
  • Software used for this entry:
    COMSOL Multiphysics, Autodesk Inventor, Blender, L-Edit,
  • Patent status:
    pending