Novel innovations to enhance everyday mobility comfort for all
Millions of people experience discomfort and pain daily which has motivated the 2022 MSK Innovation Competition participants to create tailored solutions that would make life better one person at a time.
The Bone and Joint Institute in partnership with the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship is pleased to announce that the Vessel Prosthetics team clinched the $25,000 grand prize to advance their socket system for lower limb amputees. Second prize winners of the $10,000 prize was the Step Sciences team for their custom sensory motor insoles for everyone.
Socket System for Lower Limb Amputees
“Imagine the pain of walking all day in shoes that are the wrong size. This is something amputees struggle with, except the impact of the pain is even worse.” - Sydney Robinson
The Vessl Prosthetics team, members of the Western Medical Innovation Fellows program, includes fellows Oleksiy Zaika and Sydney Robinson. Their innovation is focused on enhancing comfort for lower limb amputees by avoiding common problems related to socket fit. Vessl Prosthetics offers lower limb amputees an automatically adjusting prosthetic socket that connects them to their prosthetic leg. Most amputees experience limb volume changes daily, which means that the static socket they got measured for weeks, months or years ago never fits perfectly long-term.
Vessl Prosthetics design automatically adjusts as an amputee’s leg shrinks and swells! This important feature is typically only found in expensive bionic systems. Vessl’s solution is a simple, intuitive, and easy to use socket system that passively adjusts on its own to changes in limb volume. It is the only prosthetic socket in this form reimbursable by insurance providers.
Robinson and her co-founder, Zaika greatly benefited from the five-week mentorship aspect of the MSK Innovation Competition, working closely with Carmen Gicante, a local investor in the healthcare space. The team found his expertise to be incredibly valuable in preparing them for their pitch presentation.
“The advice I would give to entrepreneurs is to absolutely apply to this competition! It’s an incredible opportunity with great mentorship, and at the very least, an excellent place to practice your pitch.” - Alex Kopacz
Custom Designed Sensory Motor Insoles
Runners up Step Sciences includes team members Alex Kopacz (Winning Olympic Bob Sled athlete), Matthew Bellia and David Holdsworth. Using Proprioceptive Technology, Step Sciences examines anatomy to develop a custom fabricated, completely unique orthotic solution for people’s unique profile and needs. Their solution seeks to stimulate unused muscles of the feet while allowing those that have been overworked to rest.
Step Sciences aims to help unlock everyone’s gold medal performance, no matter what that goal is for each person. We are aiming to help bring preventative health care awareness and to improve the wellness standards for all people,” says Kopacz.
Step Sciences are designers and manufacturers of custom sensory motor insoles.
The Step Sciences vision is to create a healthier population through simple noninvasive intervention. Step Sciences incorporates various contours and textures into their insoles to stimulate and promote nerve activity to enhance the sensorimotor functions.
Not only does Step Sciences remove barriers for customers to obtain an orthotic, but they are also striving to produce the highest in class quality product that is affordable to the average person. Similar to Vessl’s team, Step Sciences values the mentoring opportunities gained during their participation in the competition; their advice for future applicants is to ask as many questions as possible and to take advantage of the mentorship that’s offered at every stage of this five-step competition.
Where do these winning innovations go from here?
Vessl Prosthetics team is busy prototyping!
“We are really excited to bring pre-market prototypes to prosthetists across the United States using our collaboration with Veterans Affairs. This will be a huge milestone for us as their vast network will provide the necessary validation, we need to bring the product to market, and this would not be possible to pursue without the MSK award funding,” says Zaika.
The 2023 Innovation Competition will begin with a workshop offered early spring, and an application deadline expected in March of 2023.
Mentorship will occur over the course of 8-10 weeks with a final Pitch competition in Late May.
Information about past winners as well as full details about the 2023 competition are available online.
