AxisMED is a biomedical pre-incubation program intended to fill the gaps between a university’s academic resources and entrepreneurial accelerator programs by connecting students through interdisciplinary teams and the tools necessary to navigate early-stage medical ventures. AxisMED’s program strengthens UIUC’s existing entrepreneurship ecosystem by establishing a new, accessible entry point for students to gain experience in medical entrepreneurship and innovation before pursuing further acceleration.

Success Stories

Neuronetix: Quantifying Concussion Diagnosis

Award-winning innovation using a blood test to quickly and reliably diagnose concussion in athletes.

EXPLORE

Cervicare: Cervical Cancer Screening Test

Cervicare is a rapid bedside test that detects biomarkers to accurately screen for cervical cancer.

DISCOVER

RadiantLooms: Baby Space Suit to Protect Against Radiation

A special baby space suit to protect infants who undergo repeated X-rays from the long-term effects of radiation exposure.

AMELIA: Raising the Bar for Physical Therapy Devices

All-in-one solution to support patients in need of lower-extremity limb rehabilitation. AMELIA earned first place in the Sports Medicine track at the 2024 Cozad New Venture Challenge and a prize of $10,000.

Team Lead: Justin Kim, CI MED Student

DefEndo: Improving Endometriosis Detection

Biomarker-based test for early detection of endometriosis. Honors: 2024 Cozad New Venture Challenge ‘pitch night’ competition and the BioPhia consulting award.

Team Lead: Kyra Hulse, CI MED Student

Ferritiva: Serum Ferritin Analysis for Anemic Athletes

Ferritiva develops accessible devices that screen for iron deficiency so that everyone can live a healthy life.

EXPLORE

Curriculum Overview

The AxisMED Program follows the academic curriculum, starting in the Fall and ending in the Spring. The Program compresses the Stanford Biodesign Process into an 8-month program with five Design Review checkpoints. Between Design Reviews, there are Longitudinal Programs and AxisMED-hosted Workshops.

Design Reviews

Events where teams pitch their ideas to professionals working in Medicine, Engineering or Business. Critique is often given in a "Shark-Tank" style.

Longitudinal Programs

AxisMED has partnered with several UIUC programs to collaborate on key development programs, including the I-Corps Lean Launchpad, Siebel Center for Design, and other student-run incubator programs.

Workshops

AxisMED developed several Biodesign inspired talks to support critical moments in the entrepreneurial design process.

Meet the Founders

In August 2020, four students from the Class of 2024 banded together to forge a new pathway for entrepreneurial education at the new Carle Illinois College of Medicine. Many students starting at Carle Illinois have little or no experience in starting ventures. These four students, Al Smith, Diana Wu, Alex Teague, and Ariana Barreau, were driven to support early education for students interested in entrepreneurship and design. With experience in several startups, curricular development, the Saint Louis Incubator and Accelerator landscape, and the Stanford Biodesign Program, this team set out to create a new incubator intended for Phase 1 medical students, undergraduate students, and graduate students from Carle Illinois College of Medicine and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. AxisMED began to take shape, and hosted their first full-cohort in 2021-2022 with four teams. Ferritiva and Nephra, two teams that underwent incubation with AxisMED, have achieved widespread success across our campus community, raising over $50,000 in funding each so far.

Student-Leadership

AxisMED's leadership is proud to be student-developed and student-run. Our organization believes that peer-to-peer mentorship is a key to success in medical innovation and entrepreneurship. The leaders come from broad backgrounds, including medicine, engineering, and business, and all have experience in R&D teams in industry or in startups of their own.

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