Health, Medicine, & Biotechnology

2025 Award Finalists

In this article, you’ll learn about the Create the Future Design Contest finalists in all seven categories chosen from over 600 new product ideas submitted from 67 countries.

Blood Viscosity: The Next Vital Sign – A Wearable Breakthrough in Trauma, Sepsis, and Vascular Health

The first real-time, wearable blood viscosity monitoring device fills a long-standing void in trauma, burn, and sepsis care by delivering continuous, noninvasive insights into the body’s fluid and vascular dynamics. Read on to learn more about the technology, which was the Medical finalist at the 2025 Create the Future Design contest.

Flexible Metal-Free Magnetic Gel for Soft Robotics

Soft robots, medical devices and implants, and next-generation drug delivery methods could soon be guided with magnetism — thanks to a metal-free magnetic gel developed by researchers at the University of Michigan and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany. Read on to learn more about it.

An Innovative Approach to Lower Limb Rehab Robotics

A study conducted by Fuyang Yu and his colleagues introduces an innovative approach to lower limb rehabilitation. Their research outlines the development of a lower limb rehabilitation robot designed to significantly improve the safety and effectiveness of gait training through a novel method based on human-robot interaction force measurement. Read on to learn more.

Using an AI-Powered Robotic Unicycle to Study How People Learn Complex Motor Skills

The path to recovery for stroke survivors taking their first tentative steps, or individuals navigating daily challenges from balance disorders, often feels...

How Much Do You Know About Glucose Monitors?

Your blood sugar levels can tell you a lot about your health: How well your diabetes is under control; how well your diet and exercise regimens are going; and much more. How much do you know about glucose monitors? Find out with this quiz.

How 3D Printing Is Transforming Medtech

3D printing is transforming the design and production of medical devices. Benefits include creating custom implants, prosthetics, and surgical tools tailored to individual patients, as well as the ability to quickly prototype new devices for testing and development.

Wi-Fi Signals Can Measure Heart Rate — No Wearables Needed

Traditionally, measuring heart rate requires some sort of wearable device, whether that be a smart watch or hospital-grade machinery. But new research from engineers at the...

Six Winners Announced for the 2025 Women in Engineering: Rising Star Awards

SAE Media Group announced the winners of its Rising Star Awards: Women in Engineering program today during a live online event attended by participants across the globe.

Addressing Material Changes and Safety in Medical Devices

Strategies for assessing risk, streamlining testing, and managing documentation for maintaining product safety.

2025 Rising Star Awards Winners

SAE Media Group’s Women in Engineering: Rising Star Awards program shines the spotlight on trailblazers who not only excel in their respective domains but also stroke the flames of inspiration in others. This year’s awards program features six categories: Aerospace/Defense, Automotive/Transportation, Electronics, Manufacturing/Materials, Medical, and Robotics, Automation and AI. In this special section, you’ll meet the winners in all six categories.

Medical Rising Star Awards Winner 2025

Debbie Teodorescu, Founder and Board Director, SurgiBox Inc.; Invasive & Heart Failure Cardiologist from Seattle, WA, is the 2025 Rising Star Award Winner for Medical.

Rising Star Awards 2025 Judges

Meet our esteemed panel of judges comprising of leaders from engineering and technology fields, who bring decades of experience and expertise to the evaluation process, ensuring fairness and rigor. These judges were hand-selected by SAE Media Group’s editorial team for their breadth of knowledge and experience in the industry.

Nanoparticles-Based Wearable Biosensors

A team of Caltech engineers has developed a technique for inkjet printing arrays of special nanoparticles that enables the mass production of long-lasting wearable sweat sensors. These sensors could be used to monitor a variety of biomarkers, such as vitamins, hormones, metabolites, and medications, in real time. Read on to learn more.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a new type of 3D-printed titanium that’s about a third cheaper than commonly used titanium alloys; specially designed metasurfaces — flat devices etched with nanoscale light-manipulating patterns — to act as ultra-thin upgrades for quantum-optical chips and setups; and a handheld slide staining system designed to support medical, research, or environmental monitoring.

How Digital Twins Could Lead to Better GI Function

Kennesaw State University’s Lei Shi is leading a research project that could alter how GI disorders are diagnosed and treated using virtual replicas of a human stomach.

AI Model Can Predict Cardiac Arrest Better than Doctors

A new AI model is much better than doctors at identifying patients likely to experience cardiac arrest. The linchpin is the system's ability to analyze long-underused heart imaging, alongside a full spectrum of medical records, to reveal previously hidden information about a patient's heart health.

AI-Powered Action for Rapid Disaster Response

A system uses drone imagery and artificial intelligence to rapidly assess damage after hurricanes and floods, offering life-saving insights in minutes.

Humanoid Robots in the Operating Room

As waiting rooms fill up, doctors get increasingly burnt out, and surgeries take longer to schedule and more get cancelled, humanoid surgical robots offer a solution. That’s the argument that UC San...