If you want industrial design glory, you probably dream of pulling the sheets off of your furniture designs at Milan or the ICFF in New York. It's a minority of young designers who are determined to make a difference in the medical design field, who dream of presenting at the Medical Design & Manufacturing Conference in Philly. But each year that latter conference, now in its 30th year, draws thousands of manufacturers, designers, engineers, R&D guys, and materials experts all dedicated to producing devices that extend and repair human health.

In this first video from MD&M, IDEO's Brian Mason and Stacey Chang (Medical Products Lead Designer and Director of Healthcare Practice, respectively) discuss their approach to medical device design and explain how the peculiarities of the field dictate that creativity has to happen in the early stages of the process:

At this year's conference a company called Secant Medical's Vice President of Advanced Technologies, Jeffrey M. Koslosky, will deliver a talk on his company's specialty, Biomedical Textiles in Implantable Medical Devices. "Biomedical textiles can transform medical device engineers' design portfolios to create truly innovative and market-leading devices," says Koslosky. Secant's expertise is highly specialized, as they focus on the development of materials that need to reside within the human body. In the video below, Secant design engineer Amy Woltman shows and discusses some of these materials (starts at 0:53):

Lastly, in this informative (if terribly produced) video, North Carolina State University's College of Textiles provides a more comprehensive look at biomedical textiles:

This year's MD&M Conference kicks off on May 21st, with the Expo starting on the 22nd. Learn more here.