NU Foundation
The University of Nebraska Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit organization created in 1936 by community leaders who wanted to create excellence at the university not possible through state funding alone. We manage more than 11,000 donor funds, an endowment ranked in the top 25 among public universities and keep our cost of fundraising below that of our peers.
Nebraska Research Initiative
Funded by the State of Nebraska, the Nebraska Research Initiative encourages collaborative research efforts to enhance growth in the fields of business and industry, agriculture, social services and healthcare. UNMC CAST has been sponsored by the Nebraska Research Initiative to build advanced surgical devices with telemedicine capabilities. This technology will help diagnose and surgically treat patients in rural areas.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Surgery is trending towards less invasive procedures, since reduction in surgical trauma results in improved patient outcomes accompanied by substantially reduced cost. In the quest for decreased invasiveness, natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) has emerged, with its goal of incisionless, noninvasive surgery. This concept, although accepted somewhat among surgeons, has yet to be successfully implemented on an appreciable scale due to a lack of enabling tools and technology. Our primary goal is to develop a multifunction robotic platform for natural orifice surgery, allowing technological difficulties of dexterity, size, multifunctionality, and force transmission to be remedied and providing the necessary functionality to perform NOTES procedures.
U.S. DoD Medical Department: Medical Research and Materiel Command
The U.S. DoD Medical Department of Medical Research and Materiel Command works to promote research and development of innovative technologies needed to help maintain optimal health and capabilities on the battlefield. Partnering with the U.S. DoD Medical Department, UNMC CAST works to bring surgical robots to the battlefield by developing technology that can be used by military personnel during combat emergencies.