UNMC researcher Jingwei Xie, PhD—UNeMed’s Innovator of the Year—chats with guests during the 2024 Innovation Awards at UNMC Catalyst on Nov. 7.
OMAHA, Nebraska (November 8, 2024)—UNeMed concluded its 2024 Innovation Week last night with its annual Innovation Awards ceremony at the new UNMC Catalyst building.
An estimated 225 turned out to network with colleagues, university leadership and UNeMed staff who honored all UNMC and UNO inventors that submitted new inventions, licensed a technology or were issued a U.S. patent during the previous fiscal year. In addition, special awards were presented for the Startup of the Year, Faculty Entrepreneur, Innovation Champion, Most Promising New Invention, and the Innovator of the Year.
It was the first-ever event held in the new Catalyst building, which is scheduled to officially open in January. Big Grove Brewery, an anchor tenant for the new building, partially sponsored the event, providing all beverages for attendees.
The Beam Helmet was named the 2024 Most Promising New Invention during UNeMed’s Innovation Awards Ceremony UNMC Catalyst on Nov. 7, 2024.
Although it was still not 100 percent completed, the event space provided a preview of how the massive, 170,000 square-foot facility will look in a few months. An estimated 60 guests were ushered through guided “hard hat tours” of the entire building.
The highlight of the evening was the Awards presentation. Patent awardees were presented commemorative plaques, licensees were presented glass trophies, and, for the first time, new invention submitters were rewarded with unique T-shirts and pennants. The T-shirts and pennants are only presented to inventors who submit new inventions. Inventors were also given lapel pins that can be affixed to their pennants to denote the number of inventions they have disclosed.
Carecubes, Inc., CEO Alex Laskey accepts the 2024 Startup of the Year Award during UNeMed’s Innovation Awards at UNMC Catalyst on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024.
Top honors went to Jingwei Xie, PhD, Professor in the Department of Surgery, who UNeMed announced as the 2024 Innovator of the Year. Other special award winners were Breanna Hetland, PhD, RN, as the Faculty Entrepreneur; the Maverick Technology Venture Alliance as the Innovation Champion; Carecubes, Inc., as the Startup of the Year; and the Ruggedized Beam Helmet as the Most Promising New Invention.
Dr. Xie, the 2024 Innovator of the Year, has developed an extensive portfolio of nanofiber-related technologies that have commercial potential as bandages that can better stop bleeding, promote wound-healing, help regenerate bone, deliver drug and even collect samples.
In the last decade, Dr. Xie had submitted more than 36 new inventions, resulting in eight U.S. patents, six licensing agreements and a pair of sponsored research projects. He was previously awarded the 2017 Most Promising New Invention, a 2015 UNMC New Investigator awardee, a 2020 UNMC Distinguished Scientist and the recipient of UNMC’s Scientific Achievement Award in 2019.
UNeMed President and CEO Michael Dixon, PhD, (left) presents UNMC innovator and nursing professor, Breanna Hetland, PhD, RN, with the first-ever Faculty Entrepreneur award during the 2024 Innovation Awards ceremony at UNMC Catalyst on Nov. 7.
Dr. Hetland, an assistant professor in the College of Nursing, was named the first-ever Faculty Entrepreneur award winner for her tireless efforts in building a new startup, Family Room. Her startup is built around a software solution she created to help families and care providers at intensive care units to better communicate and provide for their patients. She has won several grants and pitch competitions and is planning clinical trials this winter.
The Most Promising New Invention—The Ruggedized Beam Helmet—was developed by a cross-campus team led by Elizabeth Beam, PhD, RN, an associate professor in the College of Nursing.
The Ruggedized Beam Helmet, which was originally disclosed to UNeMed as a submission in its inaugural “Back-o-the-Napkin” contest in 2021, is improvement to powered air purifying respirators that gave health care workers so much trouble during the pandemic.
Members of that development team include Sarah Dunsmore, PhD, project coordinator; Brianna Parr; Bethany Lowndes, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Neurological Sciences; and Brian Knarr, PhD, and Andrew Walski at UNO’s Machine and Prototyping Core facility. Dr. Knarr is also an associate professor in UNO’s Biomechanics Department and was among the inventors on the 2021 Most Promising New Invention, a self-pacing treadmill.
University of Nebraska innovators who submit a new invention notification to UNeMed will receive an exclusive T-shirt, pennant and lapel pin at the annual Innovation Awards.
The Startup of the Year award was presented to Alex Laskey, the CEO at Carecubes, Inc. The cornerstone technology of the startup is the Carecube, an elegant revision of personal protective equipment for health care workers. UNMC ‘s world-renown team of infectious disease experts—including James Lawlor, MD, PhD; Mara Jana Broadhurst, MD, PhD; David Brett-Major, MD; Chris Kratochvil, MD—developed a system that essentially wraps the patient in the protective equipment allowing healthcare workers to provide the highest standard of care while also minimizing the potential for exposure to airborne pathogens.
The Innovation Champion award, presented to the Maverick Technology Venture Alliance, rounded out the list of top award winners. Brent Clark, PhD, the associate director for the Center for Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Franchising at UNO, and Lamonte Russell, the Strategy and Ventures Manager at the UNeTech Institute, accepted the award.
Pictured from left are Brent Clark, Jennifer Pool, Joe Runge, Lamonte Russell and Yansi Liao. Clark and Russell accepted the Innovation Champion award during the 2024 Innovation Awards at UNMC Catalyst on Nov. 7 for their work leading the Maverick Technology Venture Alliance, a program supported by the UNeTech Institute.
The Maverick Technology Venture Alliance is a student-led program provided by the UNeTech Institute, the University of Nebraska’s startup incubator. The Maverick Technology Venture Alliance helps university innovators build their own startup companies with detailed strategy reports that can serve a fledgling entrepreneur as an early blueprint for success. In the last three years, they have produced 56 reports, helped build nine startups and completed numerous customer discovery projects.
The Innovation Awards was the culmination of Innovation Week, a series of events and activities meant to engage and celebrate the innovations and discoveries created at UNMC and UNO.
The week began on Monday, Nov. 4, with a Kickoff event that featured giveaways and an open house to meet and mingle with UNeMed staff. UNeMed also offered a virtual seminar that discussed the ins and outs of developing an idea in to a product; a hands-on seminar that demonstrated the value and process of using a “design thinking” approach to solving healthcare problems in UNMC’s McGoogan Library; a panel discussion about alternate career options for scientists; a 3D-printing workshop in the library’s maker studio; and a lunch and learn where attendees could meet with staff and learn more about the services available from the UNeTech Institute.
