UNO biomechanics is UNeMed’s Innovator of the Year

The University of Nebraska at Omaha highlighted the 12th installment of the annual Innovation Awards Banquet Thursday night at the Stanley Truhlsen Events Center. In a break from tradition, UNO’s biomechanics program became the first department to claim the Innovator of Year Award.

Sponsored and hosted by UNeMed, the technology transfer and commercialization office for the University of Nebraska Medical Center and UNO, the awards ceremony also honored a Most Promising New Invention Award and a Startup of the Year. An estimated audience of 183 attended the event.

Each year UNeMed celebrates the discoveries and creations that emanate from UNMC and UNO with an awards ceremony that honors all faculty, students and staff who submit a new invention, secure a United States patent or sign a licensing agreement with an industrial partner during the previous fiscal year.

Collaborators Catherine Gebhart, Ph.D., and Varun Kesharwani, Ph.D., took home the Most Promising New Invention Award. Joining them is UNeMed president and CEO Michael Dixon, Ph.D.

This year, UNeTech also presented its first-ever award, the Startup of the Year. UNeTech is the university’s startup accelerator and incubator program, which was established about a year ago to help nurture early stage technologies and fledgling startup companies with university ties.

Centese, Inc., was named the Startup of the Year. Led and co-founded by Nebraska native Evan Luxon, Centese is poised to bring to market Thoraguard, a medical device that automatically clears chest tube blockages. Centese is awaiting final FDA approval, which could soon put Thoraguard on the market.

Collaborators Catherine Gebhart, Ph.D., and Varun Kesharwani, Ph.D., took home the Most Promising New Invention Award. They developed a test that detects four types of human herpes virus. Their approach also minimizes the risk of false negatives.

The test already has attracted outside interest with Streck, an Omaha biotech company specializing in medical testing systems. Streck and UNeMed will soon sign a sponsored research agreement that will help advance the technology.

Each year, the Most Promising New Invention is awarded to “an innovation with the highest potential to benefit the public good.”

The top prize was claimed by Nicholas Stergiou, Ph.D., who accepted the Innovator of the Year Award on behalf of his Biomechanics Department at UNO.

Dr. Stergiou is the founding chair of the Biomechanics Department, which has produced a remarkable portfolio of innovations that could all have significant impacts in health care.

Among those innovations is a gait analysis system; a concussion detection platform; low-cost, 3D-printed prosthetics; and a device for predicting the sudden onset of life-threatening symptoms for sufferers of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).