UNeMed concluded its 2024 Innovation Week with its annual Innovation Awards ceremony Nov. 8 at the new Catalyst building in UNMC’s EDGE District.
Awards were presented for Startup of the Year, Faculty Entrepreneur, Innovation Champion, Most Promising New Invention and Innovator of the Year.
- Carecubes Inc., Startup of the Year
- Breanna Hetland, PhD, RN, assistant professor in the UNMC College of Nursing, Faculty Entrepreneur
- Maverick Technology Venture Alliance, Innovation Champion
- Ruggedized Beam Helmet, Most Promising New Invention
- Jingwei Xie, PhD, professor in the UNMC Department of Surgery, Innovator of the Year
Startup of the Year
Alex Laskey, CEO at Carecubes Inc., was presented the award. The startup’s cornerstone technology is the Carecube, a revision of personal protective equipment for health care workers. UNMC infectious disease experts — including James Lawler, MD, Jana Broadhurst, MD, PhD; David Brett-Major, MD, and Chris Kratochvil, MD — developed a system that wraps a “cube” of protective equipment around the patient, allowing health care workers to provide the highest standard of care while also minimizing the potential for exposure to airborne pathogens.
Faculty Entrepreneur
Dr. Hetland was recognized for her efforts in building a new startup, Family Room. It is built around a software solution 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.
Innovation Champion
Maverick Technology Venture Alliance’s Brent Clark, PhD, associate director for the Center for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Franchising at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Lamonte Russell, strategy and ventures manager at UNeTech Institute, accepted the Innovation Champion Award.
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, it has produced 56 reports, helped build nine startups and completed numerous customer discovery projects.
Most Promising New Invention
The Ruggedized Beam Helmet was developed by a team led by Elizabeth Beam, PhD, associate professor in the UNMC College of Nursing. It is an improvement of powered air purifying respirators for health care workers.
Members of the development team include project coordinator Sarah Dunsmore, PhD; Brianna Parr; Bethany Lowndes, PhD, associate professor in the UNMC Department of Neurological Sciences; and Brian Knarr, PhD, and Andrew Walski at UNO’s Machine and Prototyping Core facility.
Innovator of the Year
Dr. Xie has developed a 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 has had more than 36 new inventions, resulting in eight U.S. patents, six licensing agreements and a pair of sponsored research projects.