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Washington State University

Honors Students Inventing for the Future

Honors Students Inventing for the Future

A safe and sterile needle seems to be a basic idea when preventing infections. But how that needle is sterilized, especially in places where reuse is a common practice, spurred a good idea for a pair of Washington State University student entrepreneurs.

Emily Willard (left) and Katherine Brandenstein with their winning SafeShot sterilizer, at the University of Washington Health Innovation Challenge (Photo Matt Hagen)

Emily Willard and Katherine Brandenstein came up with the idea of SafeShot, a lid that sterilizes a needle each time it enters the vial of medicine, as part of an entrepreneurship class. The two students started a company, won a health business contest last spring, and headed to Tanzania early this year to research how their product could be used in a real setting. » More …