UNeMed presented its annual Innovation Awards, celebrating innovation and discovery at the University of Nebraska.
As part of the banquet held Oct. 22, inventors received the Emerging Inventor, Faculty Entrepreneur, Innovation Champion, Most Promising New Invention and Startup of the Year Awards.
- Emerging Inventor: Ashok Puri, MBBS, professor in the UNMC Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at UNMC. His work focuses on using artificial intelligence to create more robust and accurate diagnostic tools for several medical conditions. He is a co-founder of a startup company, Deep Heath Diagnostics, which is built on his innovative algorithms.
- Faculty Entrepreneur Award: Thanh Nguyen, PhD, for his work in building two growing startups, University Medical Devise and HemaGlobal. With more than 91 inventions to his credit and the most recent recipient of the prestigious President’s Excellence Award for Faculty Intellectual Property Innovation and Commercialization, Dr. Nguyen is a professor in the UNMC Department of Emergency Medicine. University Medical Devices is marketing a new nasal sample collection kit that eliminates the need for painful swabs that test for infectious diseases. HemaGlobal is marketing a new device that simplifies the process of successfully collecting a blood smear sample.
- Innovation Champion: Invest Nebraska for its support in helping build the state’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and several university startups over the past 25 years.
- Most Promising New Invention: Cardiac Cath Lab Mentor, developed by UNMC cardiologist Edward O’Leary, MD. A professor in the division of cardiovascular medicine and the director of UNMC’s Cardiovascular Catheterization Laboratory, Dr. O’Leary invented software to help better train medical students on how to interpret coronary angiograms. His innovation is the basis of a new startup company, Aprendo Cardiovascular Solutions.
- Startup of the Year: RespirAI, a company built on a collaboration between UNMC clinicians and the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s biomechanics department. RespirAI has secured more than $4.5 million in funding to help launch a wearable device company that hopes to solve the critical problem of detecting the sudden and potentially fatal flareup of symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
UNeMed President and CEO Michael Dixon, PhD, also unveiled 13 Innovation Ambassadors. The new program will offer a group of university leaders and experienced faculty inventors to act as mentors to colleagues unfamiliar with the technology transfer and commercialization process.
The first group of Innovation Ambassadors are:
- Hamid Band, MD, PhD
- Beth Beam, PhD
- Gregory Bennett, DMD
- Benson Edagawa, PhD
- Robin Gandhi, PhD
- Jason Johanning, MD
- Brian Knarr, PhD
- Bethany Lowndes, PhD
- Thanh Nguyen, PhD
- Ryan Riskowski, PhD
- Ka-Chun (Joseph) Siu, PhD
- Paul Trippier, PhD
- Justin Weeks, PhD
I’m always amazed, impressed and humbled by the work and innovation of UNeMed and UNMC leaders, researchers, physicians, nurses and staff. So many important discoveries and new treatments began here! Congratulations to all on your commitment to this important work!