Senior Felisha Fox turns BioMed project into a reality
It took a lot of hard work and dedication for senior Felisha Fox to receive a patent for her device.
Senior Felisha Fox is taking BioMed III to a whole new level. As of now, she has gotten a provisional patent for her BioMed III project which she has named P.A.D., short for Pain Adverting Device.
The product that Fox is patenting is designed to mainly help children with juvenile arthritis who have to take painful shots on a weekly basis. Noticing that this process is not fun for anyone and creates a sense of fear of the medicine that treats these children, Fox wanted to create a device that eliminates the fear and pain components of shots.
What she came up with is a device that hides the injection pen to eliminate the fear factor and anxiety behind the shot. As for the pain factor, it uses anesthetics and vibration technology to confuse the senses and numb the surface of the skin so they do not feel the poke of the needle, or the chemical reaction once the medicine is injected. Fox found inspiration for this because her aunt has arthritis along with a lot of people she has grown up with, which requires frequent use of needles. “I know that I was terrified of needles as a kid and knowing that these kids have to do this every week. I thought any way I could help them would be good,” Fox said.
Initially, this project was just intended for BioMed III but Fox figured her idea needed to be shared. “I thought it could be something more than just a high school project, and especially because I have an idea of what I want it to be, I don’t want anyone taking that because I’ve worked really hard for it,” Fox said.
As for now Fox has a provisional patent, which gives Fox a year to get an actual utility patent, so this will give her time to get grant money and resources. In order to get to this point she had to fill out a claim and figure out how to properly format all of her information. This whole process took her about two to three months. Since Fox is the only BioMed student who is patenting their project for this year, she has to figure a lot of it out on her own. “I got this big book and it’s called How to Patent It Yourself. It is really just a bible to patenting,” Fox said.
The next step would be to get the utility patent she will need to get a patent lawyer and go through a much more lengthy and expensive process. In the future, Fox plans to have BSM Alum Chaz Linder’s father as her patent lawyer. But currently, Fox is working on getting grant money from the Arthritis Foundation to help her pay for the patent license and then to go to Medtronic to create a more accurate prototype.
To finish out this school year, Fox intends to present her idea at the Minnesota Regional Science Fair in March. Along with this, she is also coordinating with the Arthritis Foundation to put on an event for children with juvenile arthritis so that they can see the positive effects of her product and also to give her feedback.
