DIIME is working on technology that could help healthcare professionals in third-world countries save patients' lives by reusing their own blood when receiving care. The start-up is specifically looking at creating technology to save the lives of mothers and children by putting a lid on hemorrhaging of blood during childbirth.
"We are focusing on maternal and infant healthcare because that's what we saw the most in Africa," says Gillian Henker, president of
DIIME.
DIIME got its start as an undergraduate engineering project at the University of Michigan. That project became DIIME and its principal technology, Hemafuse, that helps recycle a patient's blood so it can used again by that patient.
"This can be up to half of their blood volume," Henker says. "We're talking liters of blood."
The Ypsilanti-based start-up and its three co-founders and two interns recently took third place, worth $5,000, in the Emerging Company category of the Pure Michigan Social Entrepreneurship Challenge. It is putting that money toward the seed round it is raising. The start-up hopes to raise $600,000 to go toward clinical studies. It has already conducted two pre-clinical studies at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University and received positive results.
Source: Gillian Henker, president of DIIME
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.