Speaker: There's Always a Problem to Solve

By: Corinne Speckert, The Spartan Daily

Posted: 10/13/08

The ever-growing field of biomedical engineering is what Frazier Healthcare Ventures partner Julian Nikolchev spoke about Thursday as part of the Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium in the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering.

"Biomedical engineering is always going to be a big field. It's exciting because there's always a problem to solve and it's very fast growing," he said. "There's always interesting problems, so it's always fun and it's never boring."

Throughout Nikolchev's presentation, he discussed numerous medical treatments he is working on, such as new breast cancer treatments. He said he hopes to eradicate breast cancer and change it from diagnosis and treatment to prediction and prevention.

"The breast cancer treatment seems like the most profitable and most beneficial out of all of them. I think this one would be the most contributive toward advancements in technology compared to other ones," said Nick Johnson, a freshman civil engineering major.

Nikolchev discussed some other projects such as his invention of a glove-like device for humans, which looks at how people extract heat in attempts to control the overheating of athletes.

"I like to have several balls in the air, and I actually find that for me that works a lot to identify solutions from different fields," Nikolchev said. "You learn about something from one concept and you can try it in another area. I think it also helps some people focus and stay focused on one idea until they solve it."

Alex Dunlap, an electrical engineering major, said Nikolchev's explanation of the obstacles he's had in his career and his experience were what he took away from the presentation.


"His experience in the biomedical field and the things you have to take into account in order to bring a product from concept to existence is what I liked because that's the field I'm trying to get into," he said.

Kudo Sdsian, a freshman electrical engineering major, said he enjoyed Nikolchev's input on medical developments and how to get new technologies out to the public.

"I think what you can take away from this presentation is how the field influences development - not so much what development can do but how money drives it," he said, "because if you don't have funding you can't do the research, and if your product isn't necessarily something that is cheap, you can't get it to the masses."

Nikolchev said that throughout his career, he's learned about identifying significant unmet clinical needs; talking to clinicians and observing cases; keeping up with new technology; staying flexible; and recognizing your strengths.

"To be successful in the field, you have to go and observe and just learn as much as possible about the medical component and the medicine, and being able to go and see cases and see procedures. Those things are very important and are the best ways to succeed in this field," he said.

Although Johnson said he found the presentation interesting, he said he wished Nikolchev would have touched more on the cost efficiency of new technologies.

"I'm more interested in how often the methods actually work," he said, "the more economical benefits rather than if they just work because otherwise there's no real point in using them."

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