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Tag: biomedical

ODU hires associate VP for innovation, commercialization

Kevin Leslie will be Old Dominion University’s first associate vice president for innovation and commercialization, the Norfolk-based university announced Friday.

Leslie will improve ODU’s technology transfer operation to better identify, develop and market faculty, staff and student intellectual property and startups. He also will lead federal and other grant applications related to innovation and ecosystem building.

“Dr. Leslie will take ODU’s innovation and commercialization activities to the next level of success, as appropriate for an R1 institution,” Morris Foster, ODU vice president for research, said in a statement. “ODU will expand its role as Hampton Roads’ academic research and innovation leader.”

For the past two years, Leslie has served as the inaugural executive director of the Hampton Roads Biomedical Research Consortium, a state-sponsored partnership between ODU, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk State University and Sentara Healthcare to advance regional health equity and bio-health innovation. He worked with regional leadership to deploy $22 million in capital and operating funds, develop and implement strategic plans and build shared research infrastructure and resources.

“Building the Hampton Roads Biomedical Research Consortium helped me gain a deep understanding of the region and its institutions,” Leslie said in a statement. “As ODU’s role in Hampton Roads and the commonwealth continues to grow, I look forward to building on that knowledge to accelerate the translation of ideas from its labs and classrooms out into the world.”

Before leading the HRBRC, Leslie was associate director of Virginia Commonwealth University Ventures and helped lead Richmond’s Health Innovation Consortium, a public-private platform to support novel health care technologies.

Leslie holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology from William & Mary. He has a doctorate in integrated life sciences from VCU.

He is a member of the Civic Leadership Institute’s 2023 Executive Program class and has served as adjunct faculty for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program.

In his role, Leslie will work closely with Sarah Jane Kirkland, who ODU named associate vice president for corporate partnerships in December 2022.

‘Brainy’ couture: Biomed grad designs high-tech fashion

Leah Thomas became a fashion designer to cap off her undergraduate degree in Virginia Tech’s biomedical engineering program.

A member of the university’s first cohort of 40 undergraduate biomedical engineering students who graduated in spring 2022, Thomas designed a dress and headpiece fitted with biosensors for a biotech couture fashion show.

She collaborated with another biomedical engineering student and two industrial engineering students to create fashions that displayed the model’s biosignals to the audience. Her water-inspired dress and headpiece moved rhythmically with the model’s brain waves by incorporating EEG sensors.

“That was a big passion project,” the Williamsburg native says. “As much as I love the technical side, I’m also creative and this combined high fashion with biomedical sensors.”

She initially planned to major in mechanical engineering, but the opportunity to flex her creative muscles drew Thomas to Virginia Tech’s newly-established biomedical engineering program in 2019. “It combined my love of making things and design with helping others,” she says. With her degree, Thomas is moving to Kalamazoo, Michigan, to join Stryker Instruments as a design engineer.

Integrating biological sciences with engineering design, biomedical engineering aims to enhance health care with engineering solutions for assessing, diagnosing and treating medical conditions.

Virginia Tech has partnered with Wake Forest University for nearly two decades on master’s and Ph.D. programs in biomedical engineering but determined there was strong demand for an undergraduate degree that emphasized foundational mechanics.

“This is an increasingly popular major, not just in the United States but internationally because of its connection to health care,” says Jennifer Wayne, head of the Virginia Tech’s biomedical engineering and mechanics department. “Virginia Tech has such a strong college of engineering. This degree gives us an opportunity to apply engineering principles to improve the delivery of health care since biomedical engineers work hand-in-hand with health care providers to solve problems or to make solutions better.”

Last summer, Thomas interned with Virginia Tech’s Carilion Clinic, where she designed circuitry and coding on a sleeve that can be worn by lymphedema patients to alleviate pain. “It’s a combination of vibration and compression,” she says. “We’re working on getting a full patent.”

The first cohort faced unprecedented challenges during COVID. “The students excelled and were able to perform research in faculty labs, internships and co-ops,” Wayne says.

Meanwhile, the program is growing, with 60 seniors, 80 juniors and 80 sophomores enrolled this fall. ”