Dr. Insoo Suh and Dr. Barbara E. Coons flank this year’s winning team: Asna Tabassum, BS, a first-year medical student; Caroline Magro, BSE, a second-year medical student and incoming researcher; and Dr. James K. Moon, a fellow in minimally invasive surgery.
A team of two students and one fellow from NYU Grossman School of Medicine proposed a new, potentially lifesaving device for newborns, impressing judges at a Surgical Innovation competition on May 21. Further development of the idea is eligible to be supported by NYU Technology Opportunity and Ventures’ (TOV) MedTech Venture Prototyping fund for medical devices.
NYU Langone Health’s trains select NYU Grossman students, residents, and fellows in developing and pitching new medical devices. This year, three teams, composed out of nine trainees, competed for $25,000 of MVP funding support. Each group represented a distinct specialty—pediatric surgery, ophthalmology, and minimally invasive surgery—and presented their innovative ideas before a live audience and a panel of expert judges.
Judges included , vice president of TOV, Howard Levin, MD, a cardiologist, CEO and CMO of Deerfield Catalyst, and Timothy Martens, MD, PhD, a congenital cardiothoracic surgeon and a co-founder of Vaark Ventures.
By the end of the event, all participants received a certificate, officially recognizing their successful completion of the program, but only one group was named the winner: pediatric surgery.
The pediatric surgery team was composed of two NYU Grossman students—Caroline Magro, BSE, a second-year medical student and incoming researcher in the , and Asna Tabassum, BS, a first-year medical student—as well as a fellow in minimally invasive surgery, James K. Moon, MD, in the .
They were mentored by Barbara E. Coons, MD, an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, and Jason C. Fisher, MD, the William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Associate Professor of Pediatric Surgery, and chief of the , Department of Surgery.
Their device, called the Kedge—which means a small anchor—helps secure the life support system, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), to an infant. ECMO machines provide vital support when an infant’s heart and lungs are too weak to function properly, pumping blood and oxygen through the body to allow these organs to rest and heal. The machines are attached to large blood vessels, typically in the neck, via cannulas, which are small flexible tubes fastened with tape, bandages, and sometimes stitches. The issue: these attachment methods aren’t always secure.
Slight movements can cause cannulas to slip, resulting in major blood loss and mortality in infants, explained Dr. Moon during the pitch. He has experienced this traumatic event, called decannulation, firsthand. “You get an emergency page that says there’s some bleeding from the baby’s neck,” Dr. Moon said. “You’re providing chest compressions, you’re transferring liters of blood, and it’s total chaos, until it isn’t. And then you have to go talk to the family who just lost their child.”
To prevent this outcome, the team is developing a small, tubelike device to hold the cannula securely in place, eliminating the need for tape and gauze. Their early prototype has a soft rubber “bumper” that sits outside the blood vessel to protect the cannula’s insertion site and keep it from moving. Inside the device, the team is testing a magnetic tape system to hold the cannula firmly in place. The device also has motion sensors that can detect any movement and send instant alerts to doctors through a mobile app.
All in all, “Kedge implements securement and sensing in order to optimize safety,” said Magro during the pitch.
The other two groups also showcased exciting solutions to common problems in their respective fields. The ophthalmology team presented a device to treat myopia, a condition where distant objects look blurry, by placing a small device in the eye’s canal that slowly releases medicine. The minimally invasive team designed a liver retraction tool—a device that gently holds the liver aside during abdominal surgery—that is less bulky than traditional tools, improving a surgeon’s visibility and maneuverability.
After the pitches, the event served as a graduation from the Surgical Innovation Program. Trainees walked the stage, receiving a certificate and handshake from Insoo Suh, MD, the associate vice chair, Surgical Innovation, Department of Surgery, who leads the program with Robert Montgomery, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Surgery. The program is in its first year, with a successful start.
“The Surgical Innovation Program empowers trainees to transform ideas into medical devices through expert mentorship and hands-on collaboration with NYU’s Health Technology and Engineering Institute, ,” says Dr. Suh. “This event celebrates their achievements and marks a strong start to the program’s first year.”
TOV will support the pediatric team with funding to build out the prototype and file the intellectual property covering Kedge. The team hopes to either work with TOV to license the idea to an existing company or create a startup to take it to market.
“To win was beyond our dreams,” said Tabassum. “I’m really grateful to the [Surgical Innovation] Program. I’m very glad that we’re able to have support moving forward.”
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