Since committing $400,000 to University research in January, Medtronic — Fortune 500's top medical product and equipment company — has provided support for three engineering research projects, according to Brian Sheldon, a professor of engineering who has been directing the collaboration.
In addition to the funding, Medtronic also works with University professors to identify topics for projects and helps to determine the project's directions.
Through the collaboration with Medtronic, Sharvan Kumar, professor of engineering, is leading research on specialty steels that are used to manufacture different medical products, and Kyung-Suk Kim, professor of engineering, is working on ways to prevent coagulation problems in heart valves without treating patients with large doses of the drug Coumadin. Sheldon, who said the funds will provide two years of support for his project, is exploring the development of a new material that might help prevent the failure of capacitors in defibrillators.
The model for research collaboration was inspired by the University's relationship with General Motors, Sheldon said. Allan Bower, professor of engineering and co-director of the GM lab, said GM began collaborating with universities in 2001 when it established research satellite labs around the world.
Bower said all of Brown's collaborative projects have two or three GM staff members who are contributing to the research. Brown researchers and GM staff meet every six months to review past work and plan future research.
The success of the GM program and the engineering department's expertise in mechanics and materials science piqued the interest of Medtronic executives, who decided to establish a similar model, Sheldon said.
In the summer of 2010, after several Medtronic executives and research scientists visited Brown, the company started meeting with engineering professors to discuss how the University's expertise could support its needs.
"We identified a huge number of possible projects," Sheldon said. "We used that as a starting point."
After several groups of a few faculty members visited Medtronic multiple times to work out the specifics, the three different projects were launched in January.
Like the GM model, there is no designated Medtronic lab building — researchers work in the Barus and Holley labs and in the Prince Laboratory basement.
Sheldon said the collaborative research model allows Brown professors a certain degree of freedom. The funding for the research comes in the form of gifts, which means "they actually cannot dictate anything to us," Sheldon said. The arrangement allows Brown researchers to pursue projects they are interested in publishing.
But Sheldon said that because the University wants to develop a long-term relationship with the company, there is frequent communication with Medtronic staff. Sheldon and his post-doc researcher speak on the phone with Medtronic scientists several times a month, and he is working with them on the presentation of their joint project that he will deliver during the first week of December in Boston at the Materials Research Society meeting.
Sheldon expressed appreciation for the collaborative research model, explaining that working directly with a company allows his department to research relevant industrial problems and offers students and post-docs who are interested in pursuing industrial jobs the chance to actively engage with the industry.
Sheldon said he believes researchers in his department are particularly well-suited for such joint endeavors. "This group of people has, for a very long time, worked in a very collaborative way with each other." He said this puts small groups of faculty in a position to succeed at solving the industrial problems that are of interest to Medtronic.
