{"394361":{"#nid":"394361","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Bio Trio Takes Second","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe morning after April Fools Day, it still felt surreal to Mohamad Ali Najia, the former Petit Undergraduate Research Scholar whose Team OculoStaple took second place in the Georgia Institute of Technology\u2019s InVenture Prize competition the night before.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt has been quite crazy, everything seemed to go by so quickly and then it hits you \u2013 this is a great honor,\u201d says Najia, who partnered with Jackie Borinski and Drew Padilla to earn the runner-up prize for a surgical tool, OculoStaple, designed to safely treat ptosis (drooping of the eyelid).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe InVenture Prize competition is an interdisciplinary innovation competition open to all undergraduate students and recent graduates of Georgia Tech. It brings together innovators from all academic backgrounds in an effort to foster creativity, invention, and entrepreneurship. First place and $20,000 went to a team called FlameTechGrill Defender (a safety device for gas grills).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe first and second place teams both received U.S. patent filings by Georgia Tech\u2019s Office of Technology Licensing (a $20,000 value) and a spot in this summer\u2019s Georgia Tech startup accelerator program, Flashpoint.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOcculoStaple, comprised of one current student in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (Padilla) and two recent graduates (Najia and Borinski graduated with their BME degrees in December) won $10,000 in second-place prize money. A third team, Haplit, earned the People\u2019s Choice Award and $5,000.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor OculoStaple, it was another night in the spotlight of campus-wide competition \u2013 the team won the fall Capstone Design competition. But InVenture is a little different. For one thing, the spotlight is a little brighter. The event is nicknamed \u201cAmerican Idol for Nerds\u201d because it is televised (Georgia Public Broadcasting is a partner in the event), and teams make their presentations to a panel of judges in front of a raucous, live studio audience of about 1,000.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSpeaking in front of an audience was definitely a new experience, and it was my first time on television,\u201d Najia says. \u201cIt was kind of intimidating when one of the producers said, \u2018oh, about 50,000 people will probably tune in to watch on TV or live stream.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018great, now you\u2019re telling me this?\u2019\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOf the 300-plus inventors who registered for the InVenture program, six finalists made the televised event last week. And of those, Najia figured his team might have the worst chance of winning because his team was hawking a medical device, \u201cwhich means we probably have the longest road map to market of the six finalists. We thought that would be a disadvantage.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt wasn\u2019t. The biggest challenge might have been getting over the stage fright, but the OculoStaple team got its collective nerves under control.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe kept hearing that once you get on stage you feel more comfortable, you get in the zone, and I never believed it until it actually happened,\u201d Najia says. \u201cBut, you know, focus on the judges, focus on your message. I think that\u2019s what did it for us.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s been a busy few months for the fledgling startup since the Capstone competition in December. Recently, OculoStaple was awarded an early-stage medical device grant from the Atlanta Clinical Translational Science Institute (ACTSI), valued at $3,000. And work on developing the device will continue, even as the students consider where, when, and if to go to graduate school.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe definitely need to do more translational studies on OculoStaple,\u201d Najia says. Mainly, they\u2019ve tested the device on biomaterial models of the human eye. \u201cNow we\u2019re getting to the point where we need to test it on a living system.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELINKS:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/oculostaple.com\/\u0022\u003EOculoStaple\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.news.gatech.edu\/2015\/04\/02\/flametech-grill-defender-wins-2015-inventure-prize\u0022\u003EInVenture 2015\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Team OculoStaple is runner-up in InVenture Prize competition"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETeam OculoStaple is runner-up in InVenture Prize competition\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Team OculoStaple is runner-up in InVenture Prize competition"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2015-04-07 12:48:10","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:58","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-04-07T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-04-07T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"394341":{"id":"394341","type":"image","title":"Mohamad Ali Najia","body":null,"created":"1449246346","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:25:46","changed":"1475895110","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:50","alt":"Mohamad Ali Najia","file":{"fid":"75998","name":"mohamad_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mohamad_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mohamad_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1203021,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/mohamad_0.jpg?itok=71XKxO6u"}}},"media_ids":["394341"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"123401","name":"OculoStaple"},{"id":"12918","name":"undergraduate students"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}