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Mark Carlson, M.D. |
Mark Carlson, M.D., associate professor in the department of surgery at UNMC, has been working on new surgical devices for several years now. He attributes his sketching of surgical instruments to his creative ability as a “frustrated artist.”
“I’ve always liked to draw,” Dr. Carlson said. “Surgical instruments are what I know. I’m always tinkering with ideas on how to improve them or develop new ones.”
Carlson currently has several novel instruments being marketed at for commercial use by UNeMed.
“Mark is one of those rare individuals that not only sees a problem, but then takes the effort to completely develop a solution,” said Steve Schreiner, senior licensing associate at UNeMed. “It is always interesting to see what Mark has conceived of next.”
When asked what training or experience he thought is the most useful to becoming an inventor, Dr. Carlson said, “basically just a creative mind. Creativity gets lost in today’s society with video games, etc. You must be able to look at the problem and try to understand the root cause. If they have the power to imagine it, they have the power to change it.”
Carlson’s true passion is research focused on wound healing and tissue regeneration.
“Research of this level takes a lot of money to continue, money that isn’t always available through traditional means,” Carlson said.
A true entrepreneur in his own right, his goal is to finance this research through the commercialization of his surgical instruments.
“Currently it’s extremely difficult to get financing from the federal government,” he said. “There are too many investigators who depend on federal money to finance their labs.
“In order to survive you need to combine resources. Commercialization of smaller projects will help finance larger ones.”
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“We are in the beginning,” Dr. Carlson said. “As time goes on, I’ve become more involved with UNeMed and looking to submit more technologies.”
He describes technology transfer as a very important part of the process for those who want to protect and commercialize ideas.
Dr. Carlson said the ability to generate new knowledge is what drew him toward research.
“It’s being on the frontier of cutting edge technology,” he said.
More information on Dr. Carlson and his research maybe found on his Web site.
For more information on the Innovation Awards and Innovation Week events, log onto www.unemed.com.