CATALYST: SSB Catalyst is a newly pioneered program designed to cultivate a strong, cohesive community of Stanford students passionate about biotechnology and bioentrepreneurship. Members in Catalyst remain engaged with another SSB committee of their choice but will also have access to speaker events with faculty and leading members of the Biodesign community, socials and retreats throughout the school year, and unique engagement with the larger Biodesign/biotech space. The application for Catalyst is separate.
CONNECT: SSB's Connect team aims to build and foster relationships between leaders in the biotech industry and the Stanford community. In addition to creating and organizing Stanford's only funded Biotech [industry] internship program for undergraduate students, Connect organizes many events during the year, from alumni-student mixers with Stanford alumni currently in the biotech industry, to career panels and recruitment fairs. Additionally, Connect arranges tours with academic labs, large R&D companies, and up-and-coming start-ups alike. Recent events include trips to IDEO, 23&Me, and more!
LAUNCHPAD: SSB's long-running Launchpad team is at the forefront of Biodesign education. Its goal is to educate the Stanford community about medical device design, and in the process, help to incubate and 'launch' new potential biotech startups out of Stanford. In collaboration with Stanford Medical School and the Byers Center for Biodesign, Launchpad organizes (and then co-teaches!) Stanford's annual Biodesign Fundamentals class, MED 175B/275B for undergrad and grad students. Leading MED 175B/275B includes in-clinic and in-hospital observations, clinical needs finding for the course curriculum, and acting as TAs for the class. This year, it also aims to expand its work into connecting new projects from the class with funding and support from venture capital.
CONFERENCE: The SSB Conference committee brings cutting-edge research, and thought-leaders in healthcare innovation to students through speaker series, student panels, and an annual spring Biodesign/biotech conference to showcase leaders in biomedicine and healthcare innovation. Past conference topics have included regenerative medicine, pediatric medical devices, medical robotics, and engineering for the developing world. We have hosted hundreds of attendees and faculty from Stanford and around the country in the past, including students, faculty, and industry professionals.
PROBE: SSB’s Probe team leads the production and publication of Probe Magazine, Stanford's flagship biotech publication, which discusses topics and issues in medicine and technology and highlights interesting and impactful individuals in the healthcare space. The committee is in charge of writing and editing articles that examine popular or prominent issues in biomedical engineering, digital health, and health-focused product design, and showcases pathways to biodesign through interviews with physicians, engineers, venture capitalists, and more.
PROJECT: Project is SSB's flagship in biotech and digital health innovation. With dedicated lab space, multiple research teams, faculty mentorship and institutional support, Project is making headway in areas like Computational Biology through DNA Devices and more. In addition to providing students with research mentorship and contact with important faculty throughout the School of Medicine, Stanford's Byers Center for Biodesign, and Stanford's Biology/Chemistry/Engineering departments, students are able to gain critical exposure to wet lab procedures, and/or to advanced computational techniques for digital health projects. Previous projects have included the "Second Skull", to develop a novel helmet to minimize traumatic brain injuries in contact sports, but for the project teams for 2023-24 are still being initiated! This year, we want to work on projects both in medical devices and digital health, so expect cool things :)
DIGITAL HEALTH: Now under the SSB family, SHIFT [Stanford Health Innovations in Future Technologies] is Stanford's internationally-renowned group focusing on the intersection of CS and Healthcare, and this year is rebranding as SSB Digital Health. It aims to promote and cultivate health innovation on campus by creating a forum for developers, entrepreneurs, and pre-health students to collaborate. Digital Health's initiatives include organizing CS 522, Stanford's annual seminar class on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, running development workshops for health-related tools/APIs, developing an internship pipeline dedicated to Digital Health, and [potentially] working with the Project teams on actual digital health projects to address clinical needs!
HACKATHONS: Also originally run by SHIFT, SSB's Hackathons team works to bring quarterly bio/health-related hackathons to the Stanford community. Hackathons runs our signature health datathon, called Blueprint, and has helped organize health{hacks}. The Hackathons team coordinates and runs these quarterly hackathons, creates the themes and problems, finds sponsors and speakers, and more. Hackathons members will also have the special opportunity to create a completely new hackathon of their chosen theme for the Spring quarter!
SOCIAL: As a small team of dedicated SSB members, organize and run several all-hands (over 150 members) and smaller social events throughout the year. With a sizeable budget, SSB's Social team has the bandwidth to plan retreats for all SSB members and cater food to mixers with other groups, SSB alumni events, our SSB Special D, and more!
MARKETING: Another small team, this group has the responsibility of designing branding materials and marketing all kinds of events to campus. This is a great group to get involved with if you’re looking to get your hands dirty in all things SSB, since they work with all of our teams!
