Pittsburgh, October 24, 2023 -- A University of Pittsburgh team led by third-year medical student Adi Mittal won the graduate first-place award at this year’s Collegiate Inventors Competition, a national competition showcasing innovations, discoveries and research by college and university students and their faculty advisers.
Mittal's team project, Cerebral Aneurysm Test (CAT-7), is the first simple, whole blood-based diagnostic test designed to detect the formation of a cerebral aneurysm. The test is a noninvasive, less expensive, more accurate and safer method enabling earlier aneurysm diagnoses. In addition, Mittal is a co-inventor on two patent applications.
University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery chair Robert Friedlander, MD, assistant professor Michael McDowell, MD, and 2023 Pitt neurosurgery residency graduate Kamil Nowicki, MD, PhD, are advisors on the team.
Competition organizers said, “This year's finalists and their inventions provide a glimpse into the future of American innovation and emerging technological trends. Through their research, these students have harnessed their ‘inner inventor’ to make working prototypes that can positively change our world.”
Competition finalists presented their inventions October 24 in Washington, D.C. to a panel of judges comprised of inventors and experts from the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
"The Collegiate Inventors Competition showcases the next generation of game changers—young inventors who demonstrate an innovative mindset that empowers them to solve the world’s greatest challenges," said National Inventors Hall of Fame CEO Michael Oister. "These student teams earned the opportunity this week to meet and learn directly from our nation’s greatest innovators—the Inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame."
Established in 1990, the Collegiate Inventors Competition is a program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and is sponsored by the USPTO, Arrow Electronics, and Honda.