Funding for Early-Stage Invention Awarded to BME Professor

Marek Romanowski, a University of Arizona biomedical engineering professor with a joint appointment in materials science and engineering, won one of seven 2017 Asset Development awards from Tech Launch Arizona. The Asset Development program awards funding for work "such as prototype development, functionality assessment and scalability testing," ultimately to better align early-stage technologies with market opportunities.

Funding from the award will assist Romanowski, in collaboration with Dr. Gerald Lemole, a professor of surgery at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson, in developing a solid-state camera system for monitoring cranial nerve pathways in anesthetized patients.

Romanowski's previous innovations include augmented microscopy, which allows operating neurosurgeons to view blood flow inside vessels and also distinguish cancerous from healthy tissue under the microscope more clearly.