UNeMed’s presented the most promising inventions and startups of last year.

For just the second time in the event’s 14-year history, UNeMed recognized the efforts of 44 university inventors that created 28 new inventions related to the pandemic as the 2020 Innovators of the Year.

According to the UNeMed site, most of those innovations focused on helping protect health care providers, and some were fast-tracked to market and used throughout the world. Finally, the award went to all UNMC and UNO faculty, students and staff who contributed a new invention related to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic during the fiscal year ending in 2020. The Innovation Awards confer recognition for all UNMC and UNO inventors who, during the previous fiscal year, submitted a new invention, were issued a United States patent or had a technology licensed, UNeMed reported.

The Most Promising New Invention was the “Anterior Cervical Space Spreader,” a device born from the collaboration of surgeons Joseph McMordie, MD, and Daniel Sturdell, MD. Their device is new approach to c-spine retractors that could help future surgeons increase their access during complicated and delicate neurosurgeries.

Sponsored by UNeTech, the Startup of the Year award went to BreezMed, founded by UNMC psychiatrist Stephen Salzbrenner, MD. BreezMed was founded on a software solution Dr. Salzbrenner created to help doctors and pharmacists better manage patient prescriptions.

Other innovations included mobile applications to help track or screen the pandemic; new mouse models and assays to help improve study of the novel coronavirus responsible for the pandemic; solutions to personal protective equipment shortages; and solutions to limit the spread of infectious disease.

During the 40-minute presentation, UNeMed President and CEO Michael Dixon, PhD, said that the pandemic did not slow down innovation here; in fact, it added fuel to the fire. “We saw more than twice as many new inventions – 73 — in the last two quarters of 2020 (than the first), making it the most productive six-month span in our history.”