MADISON, Wis. (May 19, 2014) - SELA, a novel anesthesia applicator, won Perkins Coie’s $10,000 Innovative Minds Award on May 9 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison).

Seven teams competed for the Innovative Minds award which goes to the UW-Madison student team that presents the year’s most market-ready innovation.  Judges for the competition included Perkins Coie partners David Anstaett and Christopher Hanewicz.   

“Perkins Coie is proud and delighted to support the exceptional thinking that emanates from these creative students,” said David Anstaett.  “Their interest and desire to make life better for others through smartly articulated business opportunities is a testament to their ingenuity and sense of entrepreneurship.”

The SELA Medical team of UW-Madison biomedical engineering students Katherine Baldwin, James Dorrance, Terah Hennick, and Alyssa Mitchell created the Selectable Endotracheal Lidocaine Applicator (SELA), a medical device that sprays anesthesia into the throat of a patient who will undergo a laryngoscopy.  During a laryngoscopy, a physician directs a laryngoscope, a rigid tubular device, through a patient’s mouth and down the larynx to get a view of the patient’s throat region and open up the airway.  Once the airway is opened, it can be numbed by an anesthetic such as lidocaine.  Physicians would then perform a medical procedure such as placing a tube through the patient’s mouth and down into the windpipe.  Studies show that the application of an anesthetic such as lidocane prior to or during a procedure reduces the incidence and severity of complications.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of six campuses around the country, including Arizona State University, Northwestern University, the University of California-Los Angeles, the University of Colorado, and the University of Washington, to serve as home to an Innovative Minds competition.  Innovative Minds is a “best of show” award that recognizes a student team with the strongest overall commitment to create products and services that address some of the greatest challenges facing the world today.  Perkins Coie launched the program in 2011 to help advance creative thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Perkins Coie is a leading international law firm that is known for providing high-value, strategic solutions and extraordinary client service on matters vital to our clients’ success. With more than 1,200 lawyers in offices across the United States and Asia, we provide a full array of corporate, commercial litigation, intellectual property, and regulatory legal advice to a broad range of clients, including many of the world’s most innovative companies and industry leaders as well as public and not-for-profit organizations.

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