Department of Surgery Research Teams Awarded Seed Funding at Inaugural Shark Tank Event

Two (2) Department of Surgery research teams were awarded seed funding totaling $40,000 to accelerate their medical device innovations. The Roboimplant device, an expandable rod for orthopaedic surgery applications, took top honors, with the Sentinel Bandage, a non-invasive technology for wound monitoring, taking second place. The awards were given at the UCSF Surgical Innovations Program’s inaugural Shark Tank competition on September 24th at UCSF Mission Bay. 

Four teams of finalists pitched their innovations to a panel of experts in regulatory affairs, product development, and venture capital. The panel selected the winners based on on clinical significance, technological innovation, and likelihood of successful translation to patient care. 

Finalists 

• 1^st place - $25,000: Roboimplant: A Non-Invasively Expandable Implanted Rod for Orthopaedic Surgery  – Patrick Curran, MD, Dillon Kwiat, BS, and Michael Harrison, MD
• 2^nd place - $15,000: Sentinel Bandage: Monitoring Wounds with Non-Invasive Impedance Mapping  –  David Young, MD, Hobart Harris, MD, and Michel Maharbiz, PhD
• Mentorship Award: Esophageal Manometry for Airway Protection (EMAP): Decreasing the Risk of Aspiration and Respiratory Compromise –  Stan Rogers, MD, John Cello, MD, Rachel McKay, MD, and Michael Goff, MBA
• Mentorship Award: Redesigning the ‘Hub Cap’ to Decrease Central Line Associated Blood Stream Infections (CLABSI) – Shyam Raghavan, MD, Lan Vu, MD, and Hanmin Lee, MD

The Shark Tank event was part of the Surgical Innovations Accelerator program, which provides seed funding, engineering support, and personalized consultation and advising to assist promising medical device ideas through the product development process towards market availability and patient benefit. 

Surgical Innovations is an initiative of the UCSF Department of Surgery in partnership with the UCSF Department of Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences to identify, mentor, and facilitate the translation of novel medical technologies into transformative new devices and treatments to improve human health.