Medical Design Briefs Podcast

Continuous glucose monitoring has changed diabetes management by providing a steady stream of diagnostic information. The challenge is turning that data into clear, useful guidance without overwhelming the patient. Ali Dianaty, Chief Product and Technology Officer at MiniMed, discusses with us how sensing, algorithms, alerts, user interfaces, and insulin-delivery technologies come together to support better decisions. He also considers how connected diabetes systems can become more intuitive, personalized, and effective forpatients and clinicians.

AI-powered and computational design tools can generate intricate geometries for surgical instruments, drug-delivery systems, robotic components, diagnostic equipment, and other medical technologies. But a design optimized in software must still be translated into a reliable physical part. In this episode, Eric Utley, Applications Engineering Leader at Protolabs, explores how engineers take complex, algorithm-generated concepts from CAD model to prototype and, ultimately, production. He will help us understand the trade-offs required to balance design complexity with performance, repeatability, cost, and manufacturability.

If AI contributes to device design, development, or lifecycle decision-making, who is responsible for safety? In this episode, Ravi Nabar, CEO of QuAIZen, explores how manufacturers can govern AI-assisted innovation through validation, documentation, quality-system controls, post-market monitoring, and evolving regulatory expectations.

Virtual twins are reducing reliance on costly bench testing and early-stage prototypes. By simulating device performance across populations and environments, developers are shortening cycles and improving safety before physical builds. In this episode, Dr. Amanda Randles, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, looks at how simulation is changing medical device development.

Clinical trials are expensive, slow, and risky. AI promises to improve study planning, patient recruitment, endpoint selection, and evidence review, while also helping teamsextract and summarize complex clinical data. But in regulated healthcare environments, reliability is critical. In this episode, Ome Ogbru, CEO of AINGENS, examines how AI can support clinical trial workflows, why hallucinations and fabricated citations create compliance risks, and how evidence-grounded systems with human oversight may help sponsors and medicalteams use AI more safely.

Rapid diagnostics can determine whether care moves quickly or stalls in disaster zones, military operations, rural clinics, and global health settings where conventional laboratory infrastructure is unavailable. In this episode, Dr. Paul Yager ofthe University of Washington discusses the engineering behind low-cost point-of-care diagnostics, including microfluidics, paper-based systems, smartphone-enabled readouts, and lab-on-a-chip platforms designed to deliver actionable results closer to the patient. The conversation explores how thesetools are designed for ruggedness, usability, affordability, and reliability when sample handling, power, connectivity, and trained personnel are limited.

Devices in extreme settings must withstand vibration, heat, cold, humidity, and physical shock. Drawing lessons from battlefield medicine, polar research, and humanitarian crises, Emily Shaffer, Market Manager for Healthcare at Covestro,and Dr. David Duncan, president at MonuMedical, highlight design approaches that create more durable and universally reliable technologies.

Telehealth is only as strong as its connection. In this episode, Kelly Collins, Managing Director of SureAdhere by Dimagi, discusses how healthcare teams can deliver, document, and coordinate care in low-connectivity environments — from ruralclinics to global health programs — using offline-capable mobile tools, decision support, and delayed data synchronization.

What if the future of vision restoration depends on manufacturing in microgravity? LambdaVision is using theInternational Space Station to produce artificial retinas made from hundreds of layers of light-activated protein — a process that is difficult to perfect on Earth because gravity can disrupt layer uniformity. In this episode, Dr. Nicole Wagner, LambdaVision CEO and Dr. Michael Roberts, chief scientist of the International Space Station National Lab, discuss how space-based production could improve artificial retina quality, reduce material waste, support regulatory progress, and ultimately help patients affected by macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.

Neurostimulators are moving beyond fixed, always-on stimulation toward therapies that can sense what is happening in the nervous system and adjust in real time. In this episode, we explore adaptive deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders with Dr. Simon Little, associate professor at the University of California San Francisco. He will talk with us about how neural recordings, biomarkers, and machine-learning-assisted personalization could help matchtherapy to a patient’s changing symptoms, medication state, movement, sleep, and daily life — and what this means for the future of responsive neuromodulation.