A team of University of Illinois at Chicago M.B.A. students won the NASA Earth/Space Life Science Innovation Award at the 2008 Rice Business Plan Competition held this past weekend in Houston.

HeartSounds, Inc., founded by Liautaud Graduate School of Business students Dr. Amir Bastawrous, Matthew Norris and Michael McCoy, won the $20,000 award, given for the first time this year, for having the "best business plan that presents a life sciences technology which has application to both the NASA space life science program and to Earth-based activities."

HeartSounds' business proposal is for acoustic-based, non-invasive medical devices for diagnostic and telemetric applications. The UIC team also won sixth place overall ($3,000) for a total cash prize of $23,000.

"The NASA Earth/Space Life Science Innovation Award will encourage development of commercial technologies that can address the physiological and medical challenges of space flight and increase the awareness of the contributions being made by the NASA Johnson Space Center to the biomedical community, the Houston region, and to the overall success of the space program," Dr. Jeffrey Davis, director of Space Life Sciences at NASA Johnson Space Center, said in a press release.