Tech Transfer: Infant Ventilator

Guests: Jim Trent, Assistant Dean in the BYU College of Engineering; Mike Alder, Director of BYU’s Technology Transfer; Sheryl Flannery, Nurse  About 1 million babies die each year because they’re unable to establish breathing on their own. The World Health Organization neonatal asphyxia, as it’s called, is one of the primary causes of newborn mortality-- primarily in third-world countries where access to expensive ventilators is rare.   A team of BYU engineering students came up with a portable ventilator that costs $500 to make – a fraction of the $40,000 price tag on ventilators you’d typically find in American newborn intensive care units. Now, BYU management students are hatching a plan to get the device manufactured and into the hands of doctors and parents around the world.