Invent Now, a nonprofit organization that recognizes and encourages invention, announced the first prize winners of its annual Collegiate Inventors Competition.

Kyle Allison of Boston University was honored in the Graduate Category for a therapy to eliminate bacterial persisters, and a team from Yale University—Elizabeth Asai, Nickolas Demas and Elliot Swart—was honored in the Undergraduate Category for a handheld imaging system that helps to detect potentially cancerous skin lesions.

Showing its support for scientific and technological innovation and entrepreneurship, the 2011 Collegiate Inventors Competition is sponsored by the Abbott Fund, Abbott Laboratories' non-profit foundation; the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which along with Invent Now, announced the winners during an event at the US Department of Commerce in Washington. The competition is a featured event of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011.

This year's finalists and winners trend strongly towards medical advances, highlighting this growing focus of innovative students.

Kyle Allison received the $15,000 graduate first prize for his Metabolite-Mediated Elimination of Bacterial Persisters, a combination therapy utilizing specific metabolites and the aminoglycoside class of antibiotics to effectively kill persistent bacteria. The Yale University team received the $12,500 undergraduate first prize for the 3Derm System, a handheld imaging device that takes 3-D, high-definition images of skin lesions or other abnormalities in the clinic or at home. Through a proprietary Web interface, 3Derm System lets doctors remotely access the images more efficiently, allowing them to potentially detect skin cancer in earlier, easier to treat stages.

Now in its 21st year, The Collegiate Inventors Competition has awarded more than $1 million to students for their winning innovations. For more on this year's finalists, visit http://blog.medicaldesign.com/perspectives/ and click on the Dec 6 blog by Joe Jancsurak.