Penn Health-Tech Supports Scientists and Clinicians in Bringing Innovation to Market

Six Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia-based teams who embody the spirit of multidisciplinary collaboration to solve pediatric healthcare challenges will receive Penn Health-Tech funding and customized support to pursue their commercialization goals for the broad application of their novel medical device and health technology projects.

Core members of award-winning teams were part of the first cohort of the Innovation Ecosystem’s Academic Entrepreneurship Fundamentals Course. Their involvement in the course and subsequent Health Tech Accelerator Innovation and Commercialization Boot Camp prepared the teams with basic knowledge of technology development and commercialization in academic settings, which was applied to their proposed innovations. The HTA Boot Camp also provided support in the creation of the final proposal and pitch deck presented to a panel of industry experts.

“Congratulations to these innovative and talented teams, whose creativity and skill identified new technological solutions to problems facing pediatrics. Their presentations demonstrated an awareness of how to approach the challenging entrepreneurial path needed to take a product to scale and market. This honor is as much about growing the CHOP Innovation Ecosystem community as it is about advancing technology. I am very optimistic that the future of pediatric medical technology will be led by CHOP scientists and engineers,” said Flaura Winston, MD, PhD, Director, Innovation Ecosystem, and Distinguished Chair in the Department of Pediatrics at CHOP.

Read on to learn about these newly funded products in development.

Penn Health-Tech Accelerator Awardees

AMP-Vent: High-tech, Low-cost Ventilation for Austere Environments

Team Members: Katie Weeks, program manager; Rodrigo Menezes Forti, PhD, research associate, Division of Neurology; and Todd Kilbaugh, MD, anesthesiologist and pediatric intensivist in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, director of the Resuscitation Science Center.

Airway compromise and respiratory failure are leading causes of preventable death in combat-related injury and mass-casualty traumas. The size and weight of mechanical ventilation restrict medics from carrying the equipment in medical aid bags, leading to reliance on imprecise manual bag-mask ventilation. The Autonomous, Modular, and Portable Ventilation system (AMP-Vent, patent pending) in development is suitable for austere environments, prolonged critical care, surgical applications, and mass casualty incidences. AMP-Vent’s portability, coupled with telemedicine support and guidance from the neurometabolic optical monitoring module, can help ensure optimal trauma care in previously inaccessible medical scenarios.

“After years of development within the CHOP Resuscitation Science Center, we are honored that AMP-Vent was selected as part of this year’s Penn Health-Tech Accelerator cohort,” Katie Weeks said. “We look forward to continuing our development with support and guidance from Penn Health-Tech.”

MENDing the Eardrum: Meniscus Decellularized Cartilage for Tympanoplasty

Team Members: Riccardo Gottardi, PhD, assistant professor and leader of the Bioengineering and Biomaterials Laboratory; Narintadeach Charoensombut, PhD, postdoctoral fellow; John Germiller, MD, PhD, director of Clinical Research; and Dana Ragbirsingh, MS, research technician; all in the Division of Otolaryngology.

More than one million children annually require tubes to drain ear infections, making myringotomy (tube placement) the most common pediatric surgery in the United States. However, in approximately 10% of patients, the tympanic membrane does not heal, requiring surgery. An autologous graft, which has longer surgical time and risk of morbidity, is the main treatment option to patch the defect. Meniscus decellularized (MEND) cartilage is a bioengineered material that structurally resembles the tympanic membrane, promotes repair, and provides mechanical strength matching and surpassing that of autologous grafts currently used in the clinic. The MEND technology is in development to improve the treatment for tympanic membrane repair and avoid patient morbidity.

NOM: Noninvasive Neurometabolic Optical Monitor

Team Members: Rodrigo Menezes Forti, PhD, research associate, Division of Neurology; Katie Weeks; Todd Kilbaugh, MD, anesthesiologist and pediatric intensivist in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, director of the Resuscitation Science Center; Wesley B. Baker, PhD, co-director, Biomedical Optical Devices to Monitor Cerebral Health Frontier Program; and Tiffany Ko, PhD, research scientist in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine and the Resuscitation Science Center

This team is developing a Neurometabolic Optical Monitor (NOM) that addresses a need for simple, noninvasive tools for monitoring critical brain health parameters. NOM will fill this gap in patient care by enabling continuous and noninvasive monitoring of cerebral oxygenation, cerebral blood flow, and intracranial pressure. Its compact patient sensor consolidates these measurements in a novel, point-of-care device that can replace invasive brain monitors and reduce the use of expensive neuroimaging. With NOM’s streamlined multi-parametric brain health assessments, healthcare providers can predict brain injury enabling rapid, personalized interventions with the potential to improve patient outcomes and quality of life.

“Our team has been dedicated to advancing optical technologies for research for the past decade,” Dr. Menezes-Forti said. “We routinely use NOM across a wide range of clinical and preclinical studies that focus on understanding brain physiology in patients at risk for neurological injury. We look forward to further exploring how our device can be effectively integrated into clinical practice with the support from Penn Health-Tech.”

RADHawk: An AI-Based Radiology Expert Advisor

Team Members: Janet R. Reid, MD, FRCPC, MSEd, professor of clinical radiology and attending radiologist; Julian Lopez Rippe, MD, MSc, research assistant; Manasa Ramanjana Reddy, BEng, RIA programmer; and Susan Sotardi, MD, MSEng, pediatric neuroradiologist; all in the Department of Radiology; Ami Gokli, MD, MSEd, attending pediatric radiologist, and Michael Francavilla, MD, director of Radiology Informatics, both in the Division of Body Imaging; and Michael Welsh, BSc, data scientist in the Artificial Intelligence Program.

Radiologists need easy access to reliable resources to support subspecialty-level interpretation to ensure quality reads and care in a time-constrained workflow. RadHawk is an artificial intelligence-driven expert advisor that integrates the radiology workspace with a learning management system, instantaneously pushing contextual resources to the radiologist. Designed to augment real-time knowledge, it significantly reduces reporting errors and time wasted on internet searches while it lightens the overall cognitive load. Ongoing knowledge support is provided through individual heatmaps showing strengths and weaknesses of exposure with back-recommendations to fill gaps. Initial results show that RADHAWK significantly improves the quality of reports by enhancing the expert knowledge required to operate in this highly nuanced field regardless of the level of training or experience, according to the team.

“We are excited to be recognized and supported by Penn Health-Tech to build out and share our product that aims to augment the performance of all radiologists who interpret images in pediatric patients,” said Janet R. Reid, MD, FRCPC, MSEd. “We believe RADHAWK will be the co-pilot that supports high-quality image interpretation and expert care for all children.”

Cranio Care: A Single-stage Bioresorbable Craniofacial Distractor

Team Members: Alexander Tucker, MD, attending neurosurgeon in the Division of Neurosurgery; Shu Yang, MD, department chair, Material Science and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania; and Jordan Swanson, MD, MSc, craniofacial surgeon, Division of Plastic, Reconstructive, and Oral Surgery.

Craniosynostosis, or the premature fusion of cranial sutures, is one of the most common congenital anomalies with a prevalence of 1 in 2,500 live births. Untreated craniosynostosis is associated with poor neurocognitive outcomes and permanent craniofacial skeletal dysmorphology. Surgery performed early in childhood to correct abnormal head shape and avoid craniocerebral disproportion often uses implanted cranial distractors made of metal. After cranial remodeling, a second surgery is required to remove the distractors. The team aims to develop a novel bioresorbable distractor that does not need to be removed, which would eliminate unnecessary procedures and risks associated with surgery while also saving costs.

Seed Grant Winner

SoniLax: Novel Technology to Treat Fecal Impaction

Team Members: Jonathan A. Berken, MD, PhD, fellow in the Division of Neonatology, and Prasanna K. Kapavarapu, MD, attending physician in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition

While most instances of constipation, a common pediatric condition, can be managed with fiber supplements and laxatives, these regimens do not always work, leading to fecal impaction. Treatment requires invasive and painful procedures, such as enemas and manual disimpaction under anesthesia, negatively impacting quality of life. Lithotripsy, a noninvasive procedure, has been used for crushing renal stones with acoustic energy. SoniLax is a stool comminutor that adapts this technology to fragment impacted stool using low-intensity sound waves applied to the abdomen, removing the need for invasive procedures, anesthesia, and hospitalization. This funding will enable the team to create a prototype, produce life-like models for efficacy testing, and conduct clinical trials on human subjects.

“We are thrilled to have Penn Health-Tech's support for developing a device designed to simplify the treatment of severe constipation and fecal impaction,” Jonathan Berken, MD, PhD, said. “We’re confident that, with Penn Health-Tech's help, we can achieve our goal of designing a noninvasive, comfortable solution for a common and recurring problem in both pediatric and adult populations."