Impact & Results

Since the Jacobs Institute’s doors opened in September of 2012, is has grown and developed strong ties to medical device companies, medical device start-ups, entrepreneurs, community foundations, and to college students. The JI strives to create unique experiences for everyone that enters our doors, to keep them coming back. Our successes in 2019 depict how far we have come and what a bright future we have.

REFLECTING BACK ON OUR TIME:

  • After opening in 2013 with 3 staff members and one engineer, we are continuously growing with now 15 staff members and 24 engineers.
  • Gained ten new training clients or divisions within the medical device industry.
  • Hosted 259 people from sixteen different countries at our medical conferences.
  • Trained nearly 600 physicians, medical device industry engineers and sales representatives, regulatory reviewers, and others.
  • 700 engineers, entrepreneurs, and inventors engaged with our Engineering Services.
  • Attendees of our clinical training programs occupied over 1,000 local hotel rooms and the JI spent $50K with local caterers and restaurants.

 

Inaugural Future of Medicine Lecture

In July, the Jacobs Institute (JI) drew an audience of nearly 400 people to hear from David Spetzler, MS, PhD, MBA, president and chief scientific officer of Caris Life Sciences and an innovator in precision medicine.

The free lecture was the first in our Future of Medicine Series, continuing the conversation about what is possible in the next quarter-century in medicine-new technologies and treatments across all fields of medicine and healthcare. The series follows the release of our The Future of Medicine book in 2017.
L. Nelson Hopkins, MD, FACS, JI’s chief scientific officer, said, “We are fortunate to have someone of Dr. Spetzler’s caliber join us in Buffalo. His work empowers and advances the molecular analysis of tumor tissue at a magnitude and complexity unseen before, allowing personalized targeted therapy for cancer previously impossible. This is a look into the future treatment of and cure for cancer, which is actually beginning to happen today.”
Stratasys Digital Anatomy Printer Launch
When 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys, Ltd., announced the launch of its J750™ Digital Anatomy™ 3D Printer in October, our use of it was already underway, owed to a longstanding partnership. Our unique team of engineers and physicians continue to collaborate and advance the realism of our 3D models, bringing quality engineering to each model we produce for clinical training programs and engineering services for start-ups and medical device manufacturers, alike.
“3D printing has been wonderful for recreating patient-specific anatomy. However, the final frontier for organ model realism has been live-tissue feel and biomechanical realism,” said Dr. Adnan Siddiqui, our chief medical officer. “That’s exactly what the Digital Anatomy 3D Printer gives us. We believe these models give us the best opportunity to recreate human physiological conditions to simulate actual clinical situations and to study new devices to establish their effectiveness before introducing them to patients.”
Intern Projects: ‘Aortas, Atherosclerosis & ART…eries’
Three talented summer interns joined us for an unforgettable summer experience from June through August, where their projects focused on creating life-like heart vessels and strengthening JI’s marketing materials.
Emma Vogan, a Messiah College biomedical engineering senior from Orchard Park, created a 3D printed replica of a diseased human cadaver aorta. University at Buffalo (UB) graduate, Zachery Struczewski, studied compliance–or stretchiness–of blood vessels, in order to design anaccurate and repeatable test set-up for the JI’s 3D printed models. Gianna Damico, a UB junior studying fine art and anthropology, designed marketing materials for the JI, including a library of interactive web-based files that highlight our 3D printed models in a new way, produced a new intern recruitment video, and drafted a Brand Style Guide.

 

Philanthropy Corner
We hired our inaugural development officer, Brian Sas, to build our fundraising operation focused primarily on major gifts and sponsorship strategies. Working closely with the JI’s executive leadership and operations teams to drive new investments in 2019, he is advancing the forward momentum of the Institute.
Thanks to the philanthropic support from the Jacobs Family and other major donors, our i2R, or Idea to Reality Center, advances innovative medical device ideas positioning the JI as the leading neurovascular innovation center in the world.  By uniting world-class talent of clinicians, engineers, researchers, and industry, we reject the status quo of current treatments for stroke and heart attack to look beyond the boundaries of established protocols. We are pioneering next-generation medical technologies to advance healthcare in WNY and beyond. None of this would be possible without continued philanthropic support to fund these expensive endeavors.
If you would like to support the JI while shopping for your favorites on Amazon.com, please consider our AmazonSmile account to help us make a difference.