May 25, 2007

MGH researchers named CIMIT award winners

Fifteen MGH research teams have been selected as recipients of part of a $5 million science awards program sponsored by the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), a nonprofit organization that provides support to early-stage medical device researchers.

Aimed at encouraging innovation in health care, the awards range from $40,000 to $100,000. CIMIT officials accepted 37 proposals from a total of 100 applications and offered awards to interinstitutional and multidisciplinary teams. MGH investigators will lead 10 of the teams.

"We are grateful to CIMIT for these awards and anticipate great advanced technologies in our clinical practices from the outgrowth of the research the awards support," says Peter L. Slavin, MD, president of the MGH.

"Our goal, and we believe in it passionately, is to bring life-changing technology to patients as quickly as possible," says John Parrish, MD, founder and director of CIMIT. "We are pleased that researchers from the MGH are well represented on our list of awardees."

Research experiments will include the development of improved hip replacement technologies to reduce the likelihood of femur fractures, the creation of systems to track instruments in a medical procedure simulation and experiments to measure brain function to improve the safety of brain surgery. MGH lead investigators of the teams are Riccardo Barbieri, MD; Timothy Bhattacharyya, MD; Walter Dzik, MD; Julian Goldman, MD; David Judge, MD; Peter Masiakos, MD; Paul F. Neumann, MD; Mark Ottensmeyer, PhD; Homer Pien, PhD; and Jonathan Winograd, MD.

The MGH is a founding member of CIMIT, which comprises a consortium of Boston-area teaching hospitals and engineering insitutions. For more information about CIMIT, visit www.cimit.org/index.html.