Design Thinking: Game-Changing Potential for Medical Research

When people think of “design,” they generally think of aesthetics, or a discipline related primarily to the appearance of “man-made” objects. Design studies, after all, have traditionally been the province of art schools, and today are found almost exclusively in academic departments where the preoccupation with appearance is at a premium. (As in interior design, fashion design, web design, and so forth.)

For this reason, design is not something typically thought of as remotely related to (much less critical to) medical research. What, people in the life sciences fields often wonder, does design have to do with what happens in the laboratory?

The answer?

Everything.

Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

-Steve Jobs

Or as Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Alexander Simon explained:

Engineering, medicine, business, architecture, and painting are concerned not with the necessary but with the contingent—not how things are but how they might be—in short, with design…Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.

Design isn’t an afterthought or something “extra” – it’s not an aesthetic “add on.” Design isn’t even optional because design is inescapable as the very process through which anything man-made is created, either tangible and intangible.

As “the intentional solution to a problem within a set of constraints,” design thinking – a way of thinking with a deep understanding of the relationship between form and function and that is imaginatively attuned to future solutions rather than past problems – applies to everything. (What do constructing a house, recording an album, baking a cake, planning a trip, organizing a farmers’ market, engineering a transport system, and inventing a medical device all have in common? Design thinking.)

In relation to medical research, design thinking carries with it game-changing potential.

The aseptic manufacturing that is an integral part of medical research is almost the last industry that most people would think of as having anything to do with design, but Lifecycle Biotechnologies – a leading life sciences tools and services supplier – has used it with deliberately disruptive results.

Conventional plastic and glass aseptic containers used in medical research labs pose a number of problems based on poor design – a weakness that Lifecycle has been quick to exploit as a strategic opportunity to capture greater market share by leveraging the power of design thinking.

Lifecycle accomplished this by designing it’s CHEM+POUR Bag, a non-rigid container in the form of a bag that decompresses from the exterior when poured (something impossible for the design of the industry-standard plastic or glass bottle) that eliminating the unpleasant (and sterility compromising) splash and “glug” that commonly comes when pouring from a rigid container. Additionally, for controllability and ease of use, designers built handles into the bag to make it easy to carry and to provide the technician a secure, comfortable grip.

Lifecycle’s innovative design tackled not only functional-use problems, but also storage problems.

Lifecycle took into account the storage disposal and disposal transport considerations of aseptic manufacturing containers and realized that conventionally used rigid plastic and glass versions wasted an enormous amount of space and tended to be unstable (having lost their anchoring weight once they were empty). With this in mind, the company designed their emptied bags to deflate to a flat, stackable, stable profile, taking up 84% less space than the 100 4L bottles that would normally be used for the same job.

Not only did the new design deliver disruptive functional and storage features, it also greatly reduced the ecological impact of the rigid plastic and glass bottles normally used in aseptic manufacturing. (Lifecycle deliberately designed their bags to dramatically reduce the environmental footprint associated with space-consuming – and thereby pollution producing – transport costs and landfill volume.)

While these solutions to the problems posed by conventional rigid plastic and glass containers may seem obvious, the fact that they represent genuine innovations beyond what commonly exists is a testament to the ways that design thinking (with its deep understanding of the circular feedback loop between form and function) is a core driver of disruptive innovation. (Particularly in industries that until now have given little thought to design.)

More recently, Lifecycle has built on the success of its CHEM+POUR Bag with its soon to be widely available CHEM+SLUSH product, specially designed containers for the reagent (known as “Slush”) used in organ and tissue recovery.

The advanced design of the CHEM+SLUSH overcomes the procurement problems, storage inefficiencies, use efficiencies, and aseptic risks that current designs pose, and is expected, like the CHEM+POUR Bag, to be enthusiastically received by the industry.

Lifecycle has further expanded its design horizons and claimed competitive advantage with its SAFEthread Drum, a recast that overcomes the deficiencies of prior design.

The SAFEthread Drum is a simplified two-piece drum and lid container that dispenses with the metal rings that have proved problematic during transit of other drums. The absence of the metal ring eliminates the risk of a technician tearing a glove (and compromising aseptic conditions) upon opening and is more secure and easier to handle. It is also available in a palette of customizable colors to align with the aesthetic of any brand.

Design thinking entails game-changing implications for medical research, and Lifecycle leverages this core competency in every aspect of their operations. Whether it’s the design of a product used in a cleanroom, the design of their workspace, or the design of their company culture, they understand that the ongoing application of design thinking is where the rubber of creative ideas meets the road of disruptive innovation.

If you’d like to experience for yourself why design thinking matters, contact Lifecycle today and see how they can help you and your facility.