A medical device based treatment of onychomycosis
We are developing a novel medical device to treat onychomycosis or fungal nail. The major goals of our Phase II project are to develop a clinical prototype instrument, perform engineering tests and analysis that verify its performance on established in vitro nail models and do the initial safety evaluation and risk management tasks required before clinical trials can begin. Specifically, this project would utilize engineering design and development skills to modify and optimize our non-thermal plasma instrument and then perform laboratory bench testing to determine the modification's success in a rapid development cycle. less We are developing a novel medical device to treat onychomycosis or fungal nail. The major goals of our Phase II project are to develop a clinical prototype instrument, perform engineering tests and analysis that verify its performance on established in vitro nail models and do the initial safety evaluation and risk management tasks required before clinical trials can begin. Specifically, this project would utilize engineering design and development skills to modify and optimize our non-thermal plasma instrument and then... more
We are building a medical device to cure fungal nail infections. 10% of the world is infected, so if you want to work on a big, important medical problem, this is about as big as you'll get.
We are on track to do our first clinical trial in early 2016 with our first prototype that will provide proof of concept that the device technology works for real patients.
Your role, as a mechanical or electrical engineer, will be to work with and help us iterate and improve our device design for "version 2.0".
This will include: Finding ways to reduce the size of the device Finding ways to improve the effectiveness of the treatment (example: changing the geometry of how the device interfaces with the patient's foot) Improving the human factors of the device (e.g., comfort for the patient)
We are essentially 4 scientists/engineers "in a garage" trying to change the world. We aren't curing cancer, but we are trying to help over 700 million people get rid of their fungal nail infections. For many, this problem is cosmetic. For diabetics, 30% of whom have fungal nail infections on their feet, they are 4x more likely to have their foot amputated due to fungal nail complications. We believe strongly that no one should lose a foot or limb because they couldn't find an effective treatment for their toe nail infection.
We hope you'll join us.
Because our medical device is a combination electrical and mechanical device, we really need you to have expertise in electrical or mechanical engineering. You don't have to have medical device experience because we can teach you that, but we need you to be comfortable building, testing, and learning from your experiments to help improve the electronics and/or mechanics of the device. Don't worry, you won't be alone. We are scientists/engineers ourselves and will mentor, guide, and learn with you all along the way.
Besides typical electrical or mechanical "classroom" training, we are looking for someone who loves to "tinker" and find out how things work and how to improve things. This is the essence of what this project is all about.
So if you're interested in applying, this is what we would look for in your application: 1. are you a clear communicator? Can you express your ideas clearly? 2. do you have an electrical or mechanical background? 3. do you enjoy building things, improving things, experimenting on how machines work?
If you answered yes to all 3 points above, we would love to speak with you.
