The Collegiate Inventors Competition has named Team Innerva of the Whiting School of Engineering a finalist for the undergraduate group’s invention, a device for reducing pain from nerve damage in people recovering from amputation procedures. Team Innerva was advised by DMSE faculty member and associate director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology, Hai-Quan Mao and now represents one of 37 times Johns Hopkins has had finalists in the annual competition.
The students, including Department of Materials Science and Engineering senior Bruce Enzmann, were inspired to pursue developing the device after discussing the challenges of targeted muscle reinnervation with Johns Hopkins surgeon Sami Tuffaha. The surgical procedure, which facilitates nerve growth in the remaining tissue after amputation, works with nerve signals from advanced prosthetics to direct movement.
Earlier this year, Team Innerva was named a 2021 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize winner, and Bruce Enzmann was awarded a Goldwater Scholarship.
To read more about the competition, Team Innerva, and the device, read the Hub article run on September 13, 2021.