Thomas O’Sullivan wins 1st Source Commercialization Award
November 17, 2023
Thomas O’Sullivan, associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame and an affiliate faculty member of the Wireless Institute, is the first-place winner of the 2023 1st Source Bank Commercialization Award. The first-place award carries a $25,000 cash prize.
O’Sullivan co-founded NearWave, a non-invasive handheld medical device that helps physicians select the right therapy for breast cancer patients. The hand-held imaging device can tell in under a week if a treatment is working, rather than having patients wait six to 12 months and potentially suffering through toxic side effects. The NearWave device may also reduce the number of biopsies required for breast cancer by enabling imaging in OB-GYN and primary care offices.
The concept for NearWave started in a graduate class taught by O’Sullivan. He and co-founder Roy Stillwell worked on NearWave with the O’Sullivan Research Group in the Biomedical Photonics Laboratory at Notre Dame.
NearWave’s technology has shown promising results in the ability to differentiate benign from malignant tumors non-invasively with 90 percent specificity and sensitivity.
“I am humbled and honored to be counted among the current nominees and past recipients of this award,” said O’Sullivan. “I am also grateful for the incredible support and encouragement since my arrival at Notre Dame. Thank you to Notre Dame’s Electrical Engineering department and the College of Engineering for building us a lab that allowed us to do, for the first time, clinical studies of a Notre Dame-developed medical device on campus. Thanks also to the Harper Cancer Research Institute and the Berthiaume Institute for Precision Health for seeding core technologies in the NearWave scanner. Thanks also to the College of Science. In addition, Notre Dame and St. Joseph Health have been incredible partners that have allowed NearWave to safely perform our research.”
NearWave has raised $1.5 million in outside investment and has an open seed round with several investors. Currently, the device is available to researchers in oncology, women’s health, traumatic brain injury research, and optics-related groups.
Originally published on Notre Dame News, November 15, 2023.
Written by Olivia Poole