Dr Rajiv Doshi, executive director (US), Stanford-India Biodesign (SIB), and consulting assistant professor, Stanford University, US, was one of the many eminent individuals who attended the recently held 6th Annual Medtech Summit at New Delhi, India. Dr Doshi is also founder and chief scientific officer of Ventus Medical, a venture capital-backed medical device company in California, US.

While speaking on the sidelines of the event Dr Doshi talked about the SIB fellowship, outcomes, and entrepreneurship in bioscience sector among various other things. Initiated in 2007 by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF), the Stanford-India Biodesign (SIB) program encourages multidisciplinary approaches to biology and medicine by training the next generation innovators in India.

The program is dedicated to producing leaders in medical technology through courses, fellowships and one-on-one mentorship. It is open for those who have an interest in the invention and early-stage development of medical technologies. Following are the excerpts of the discussion:

How does the SIB fellowship program work? What has been the outcome so far?
The fellows work on a multidisciplinary team joining other innovators with a combination of engineering, medical and business backgrounds. They spend an equal duration of six months at Stanford University and in India. While examining the clinical needs, the teams identify opportunities for medical technology innovation.

The teams work closely with Stanford University, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, and get world-class mentorship across the globe.
SIB has so far trained 24 fellows. In addition, 28 interns have worked on projects at SIB in India, and imbibed much of their learning from the fellows and the SIB India faculty. The program has resulted in the development of 12 devices so far.