John Neubaum (center), co-founder of Omaha startup HemaGlobal, and Michael Wadman, MD (right)—Chair of UNMC’s emergency medicine department and co-inventor of RapidSmear, the startup’s foundational technology—chat with Rob Owen (far left), Executive Director of Bio Nebraska, during the March 27, 2025, Morning Edition networking event at Catalyst.
OMAHA, Nebraska (April 3, 2025)—Attendees at UNeMed’s March 27 installment of Idea Pub: Morning Edition got an early peek inside the nearly completed Catalyst building, just a few weeks shy of its grand opening.
Morning Edition is UNeMed’s networking event for university innovators, entrepreneurs and startup community members, and featured two short presentations. One highlighted an innovative medical device developed at UNMC, and the other outlined a division within the Department of Defense currently seeking innovative faculty and their ideas.
Michael Dixon, PhD, UNeMed’s President and CEO, addresses the crowd during the first Idea Pub: Morning Edition to be held in the new Catalyst building. Held on Thursday, March 27, 2025, the networking event also included guided tours of the nearly completed facility, which is expected to host a grand opening in May.
Catalyst, a co-sponsor of the event, also provided tours of the spacious facility, which is tentatively planning a grand opening event in late May. Future Morning Editions will continue meeting in Catalyst’s Forge Event Hall, on the north end of the building. Guided tours will also continue as a feature of upcoming Morning Editions.
UNeMed President and CEO, Michael Dixon, PhD, opened Thursday’s meeting to encourage onlookers to reach out to fellow attendees to meet new people and forge new bonds.
“We do this to get people here who share a passion for innovation and development,” he said.
“Whether you’re a community member or a University employee,” he added, with a sweeping gesture to the crowd, “these are the people that can help you.”
The featured speaker, John Neubaum, delivered a presentation about a new innovation developed at UNMC.
Neubaum, a design engineer at RD Tool and Engineering, is co-founder of HemaGlobal, an Omaha startup built on an invention borne from UNMC’s innovative emergency medicine department. Department chair Michael Wadman, MD, and nurse Thang Nguyen, PhD, collaborated to create a device called “RapidSmear.” It is a portable device that allows clinical staff to quickly and easily prepare blood and bone marrow samples for microscopic examination.
The proper preparation of a blood slide for diagnostic testing is more complicated than it looks, and an improperly prepared slide could create potentially disastrous delays during a medical emergency, Neubaum said.
“I don’t think they could have picked more unqualified people to perform a test [of the prototype] than me and my father,” he said. “It was easy.”
He added that a 6-year-old family member also successfully prepared a smear slide using the new device, which is small enough to fit in a pocket and cost-effective enough to be disposable.
RapidSmear is on track to launch for public use in early 2026, he said.
A view of the main hall or “alley” of the new Catalyst building at UNMC on March 27, 2025, about four weeks before the scheduled grand opening.
The remaining presentation featured Wade Watts, Regional Engagement Principal for the Defense Innovation Unit.
Wade Watts
He said the goal of the unit is to incorporate innovators as quickly as possible into the Department of Defense, looking to create collaborations for inventions that can support the Department’s mission.
“If there’s one thing to take away from this,” he said, “take everything you know about military funding and the byzantine process for applying and all that: Throw that out the window.”
The Defense Innovation Unit hopes to simplify that process and encourage more collaborations, he said.
He also announced an upcoming Defense Innovation Forum event, which is planned for Sept. 11, 2025, at Mammel Hall on UNO’s Aksarben Campus. The event will feature a series of seminars or workshops aimed at helping people understand how to use the services and programming that the Defense Innovation Unit provides.
No further details were released about the planned forum.
The next Morning Edition is planned for April 24, 2025, in the Catalyst Forge Event Hall at 9 a.m.-11 a.m. The featured speaker will be UNMC surgeon and inventor, Jason Johanning, MD, who is expected to present his startup, Automated Assessments, LLC.
