Team MenoPal (from left) Bo Guan, Chaya Edelman, Mican Meneses and Cira Cardaci with fellow CCNY alum and Nestle SHIELD senior medical director and head of medical innovation Dr. Warren Winkelman.
The Master’s in Translational Medicine (MTM) program at The City College of New York (CCNY) is an exciting collaboration between The Grove School of Engineering and The CUNY School of Medicine. A new kind of graduate degree program, MTM is gaining traction in the rapidly growing New York City healthcare landscape, educating the next generation of leaders in medical technology innovation.
Earlier this month, an MTM alumni Biodesign team won the Nestlé Skin Health SHIELD “Journey to Innovation in Skin Health” Pitch Event. MenoPal, a team comprised of 2017-2018 MTM graduates, is working on a "Wearable Medical Device for Menopause Management." The team will receive $25,000 in project funding and, importantly, the opportunity to work with SHIELD on further development of their product. MenoPal was also recently awarded a National Science Foundation I-Corps™ grant to conduct customer discovery around their product.
SkInsight, a second team comprised of MTM alumni, won an honorable mention for their software application that aimed to help individuals dealing with symptoms associated with atopic dermatitis.
“We are excited and inspired to see talented biotech engineers and developers offering a solution for the shockingly underaddressed needs of menopausal women,” said Dr. Warren Winkelman, Senior Medical Director and Head of Medical Innovation for SHIELD. “MenoPal empowers women in a data-driven and quantified way to take control over what can be a distressing transition and minimize their discomfort, uncertainty, and stress. Further, we see this collaboration as an important opportunity to elevate a new narrative in the face of continuing stigma associated with aging and menopause.” Dr. Winkelman is also a proud City College alumnus who has sponsored MTM teams and worked to integrate the mission and growth of the program.
Few scientific degree-granting programs have attempted to integrate business practices with the skills that are necessary to design effective clinical solutions. City College’s MTM program explores and examines all facets of the medical technology development process from creating a functional prototype to the build-out of business and clinical strategies. The program prepares graduates for careers in industry, start-ups, medicine, and clinical research.
“We are thrilled with the success of our MTM graduates at the SHIELD pitch event,” said Jeffrey S. Garanich, Ph.D., Director of the MTM Program. “We envision that a number of our student teams will continue development of their Biodesign technologies after they complete the program. We hope that SHIELD’s recognition of MenoPal and SkInsight shows that MTM provides its graduates with the foundation required to bring a new medical technology to market.”
MTM’s 3-semester Biodesign course sequence and project teach students a hands-on approach to developing a new medical technology that addresses an unmet clinical need. Students have the opportunity to interact with outstanding faculty, thought leaders and cutting edge experts in the medical technology industry who provide up-to-date advice and training in the quickly developing field of translational medicine.
This approach is engaging for engineers, scientists, researchers and others with a STEM background. By completing a stimulating curriculum and challenging program that fosters leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation, MTM graduates are ready to create and develop the medical technologies that will change the future of healthcare. Applications are currently being accepted for the 2019-2020 academic year and interested individuals can learn more about the program here.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its role at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. In addition, the Center for world University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.2% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. More than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight professional schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.