The 2025 Contest is Now Open for Entries!

Submit your best new product ideas in any of seven categories for a chance at $25,000 USD and other great prizes. Here’s how 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 in more than 100 countries. Join the innovators who dared to dream big by entering your ideas today.

Read About All the 2024 Winning Inventions

Special Report spotlights the eight amazing winners in 2024 as well as honorable mentions in each category, plus the top ten most popular entries as voted by our community.

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 Us for Create the Future News

Synthetic Bone Graft Material

Votes: 0
Views: 6610
Medical

Synthetic bone graft materials are required to reduce the dependence upon harvested patient bone or donated cadaveric bone. All current bone graft materials fail to adequately meet the needs of orthopedic surgeons or patients. Existing products have difficulty in matching the structure of patient bone; the necessity of compounding in the operating suite limits the resulting structure to simple forms. Where a material does have a compatible structure to patient bone, then bonding to adjacent bone is lacking (pills, beads, or blocks of material, packed into a bone cavity).

A better material would: adhere to native bone; come ready made, with a defined micro-structure; and encourage the ingrowth of new bone tissue through growth stimulating agents. No such product exists yet.

“Bone Putty” is a malleable bone graft material, manufactured and held inert until the material is warmed to body temperature, at which point the material solidifies and adheres to adjacent bone. The material possesses osteoconductive properties, bonding to a patient’s native tissue and encouraging regrowth of bone into the implant. Ultimately, the material is completely absorbed and replaced with fresh bone.

The material is a significant advance over the current art in that it can be precisely formulated in a controlled manufacturing environment, it allows for the incorporation of reinforcing material, it is immediately ready to use upon removal from the sterile package, it does not require the surgical team to mix multiple compounds within the surgical suite, and it forms a solid structure upon implantation. Unlike existing products, the curing of the material occurs only after implantation and does not require the application of UV light, the addition of a chemical initiator, or the recruitment of environmental moisture.

This unique advantage, the ability to manufacture a controlled-activation bone graft material, allows the material properties to be tailored to fit the needs of the surgeon and the patient:
• tensile and compressive strength;
• rate of resorption;
• presence of radiocontrast;
• controlled release of bone growth initiators; and
• physical structure of the material.
All in a ready to use, sterile, non-pyrogenic, and moldable dosage form.

How does the product work? Bone Putty uses a temperature sensitive encapsulation technology to allow a polymerizable substance to be mixed with a curing agent. The curing agent is held in isolation by an insoluble encapsulant until the material warms to patient body temperature. The encapsulant then melts, allowing the polymerizable substance and the curing agent to mix and solidify. This technology allows the creation of a moldable material, which only hardens upon implantation. The cured material is inherently porous, allowing the ingrowth of new bone tissue. Since the material can be compounded and distributed, it allows the incorporation of structural reinforcement agents, bone growth stimulating agents, viscosity modifiers, and is capable of being formed with a wide range or internal micro-structures.

Bone putty is based upon patent pending technology. Non-provisional patent application
US 2012 / 0111229, Multi-Component, Temperature Activated, Tissue Adhesive, Sealing, and Filling Composition, was published on 05/10/2012.

  • Awards

  • 2012 Top 100 Entries

Like this entry?

Voting is closed!

  • About the Entrant

  • Name:
    Darren Nolen
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Software used for this entry:
    TurboCAD
  • Patent status:
    pending