Houston medtech accelerator announces inaugural cohort

future of health care

Five companies have been selected for a brand new accelerator program in Houston. Image via Getty Images

A Houston medical technology organization has announced the inaugural cohort of a new early-stage accelerator.

M1 MedTech, launched this year by Houston-based Proxima Clinical Research, announced its Fall 2022 cohort.

“This initial cohort launches M1 MedTech with an interactive 14-week agenda covering the basics every emerging MedTech business needs to progress from a startup to an established solution in their market,” says Sean Bittner, director of programs at M1 MedTech, in a news release.

The accelerator will equip early-stage startups with storytelling, business plan support, investor connections, FDA guidance, research, and more through one-on-one consultations, workships, and in-kind services.

The first cohort includes five startups, per the release from the company:

  1. Linovasc. Providing a long overdue major update to balloon angioplasty devices in over 50 years, the Linovasc solution offers a safer branch occlusion and aortic stent dilatation using a toroidal balloon that expands the aorta uniformly without the ischemia caused by current treatments. The company is founded by Bruce Addis.
  2. Grapheton. Founded by Sam Kassegne and Bao Nguyen, Grapheton's patented carbon materials work with electrically active devices to improve the longevity and outcome of bioelectric implants in the body. Terry Lingren serves as the CEO of the startup.
    • Rhythio Medical. Founded by Kunal Shah and Savannah Esteve, Rhythio is the first preventative approach to heart arrhythmias.The chief medical officer is Dr. Mehdi Razavi.
      • PONS Technology. An AI cognitive functioning ultrasound device attempting to change the way ultrasound is done, PONS is founded by CEO: Soner Haci and CTO: Ilker Hacihaliloglu.
        • Vivifi Medical. Founded by CEO Tushar Sharma, Vivifi is the first suture-less laparoscopic technology that connects vessels to improve male infertility and benign prostatic hyperplasia. The company's senior R&D engineer is Frida Montoya.

          The program includes support from sponsors and experts from: Proxima Clinical Research, Greenlight Guru, Medrio, Galen Data, Merge Medical Device Studio, Venn Negotiation, Engagement PR & Marketing, Aleberry Creative, and others.

          “This is an amazing opportunity for emerging founders to learn the progression of pipelining their ideas through the FDA and absorb the critical strategies for success early in their business development,” says Isabella Schmitt, principal at M1 MedTech and director of regulatory affairs at Proxima CRO, in the release.

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          5 Houston universities named best in the world on new U.S. News list

          Top of the Class

          Five Houston-area universities have been named among the best universities worldwide in U.S. News & World Report's just-released comprehensive list for 2026-2027.

          U.S. News' Best Global Universities report ranks more than 2,250 schools based exclusively on their academic research performance and international reputation. Only 275 universities from the U.S. were included in the global ranking, and 21 based in Texas.

          Harvard University topped the list for 2026-2027, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University claimed the coveted No. 2 and No. 3 spots worldwide.

          Houston's Baylor College of Medicine topped the list of the best local schools, and it ranked as the 144th best university in the world.

          Here's how the rest of Houston's local institutions ranked:

          • No. 201 – Rice University
          • No. 324 – University of Texas Health Science Center Houston
          • No. 390 – University of Houston
          • No. 599 – University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston

          In a statement explaining global university trends, the managing editor for Education at U.S. News, LaMont Jones, Ed.D., said schools in the U.S. have continued to rank "disproportionately high" while major universities from other countries in China and South America are starting to catch up.

          "The continuing strength of [American university] reputations and academic research are, for the most part, unmatched," he said. "It's why students all over the world flock here to learn."

          Top-ranking Texas universities
          The University of Texas at Austin ranked No. 1 statewide and No. 56 worldwide, further cementing the university's reputation as the top choice for students seeking a higher education in Texas.

          Earlier in June, UT Austin ranked No. 35 in a separate list of the best universities in the world from the Center for World University Rankings, which compared 2,000 schools globally.

          Here's where other Texas universities stand among the top 1,000 in this year's global rankings:

          • No. 113 – University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
          • No. 177 – Texas A&M University, College Station
          • No. 296 – University of Texas at San Antonio
          • No. 451 – Baylor University, Waco
          • No. 503 – University of Texas at Dallas
          • No. 562 – Texas Tech University, Lubbock
          • No. 739 – University of North Texas, Denton
          • No. 975 – University of Texas at Arlington
          • No. 944 – Southern Methodist University, Dallas
          Additionally, six Texas universities ranked outside the top 1,000: University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (No. 1,153); University of Texas El Paso (No. 1,238); Texas State University in San Marcos (No. 1,531); Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock (No. 1,871); Texas Christian University in Fort Worth (No. 1,906); and Sam Houston State University in Huntsville (No. 2,141).

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          This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

          Rice student startup lands $1.85M to launch medical drone network

          critical cargo

          Students at Rice University have developed a medical cargo drone transport system to help deliver sensitive medical supplies and improve mobile healthcare efforts.

          Haast Autonomous is the brainchild of graduating seniors Ege Halac, Jason Chen and Santiago Brent, who got their venture idea off the ground with help from the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) Summer Venture Studio. The founders have developed the prototype at Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) with fellow Rice researchers Felix Hasson, Ethan Javedan, Kenna Sanders and Caden Schmidt.

          The startup has raised $1.85 million in pre-seed funding, according to Rice. The founders plan to focus on Haast full-time following graduation. They said they aim to launch pilot trials in 2027 and head to market later that year.

          “We need better alternatives for a fast, safe and on-demand system of transport for life-critical cargo,” Halac said in a news release from Rice.

          The Haast team has developed a custom aircraft with software that manages dispatch, routes, and chain of custody to assist in how materials move between sites in centralized medical systems. Generally, the transportation of medical supplies and materials between facilities and points of care relies on ground shipping or expensive air transport.

          Haast Autonomous’ aircraft can take off and land vertically, and is designed around a mission profile of 50 to 62 miles. It can carry a payload of at least 5 pounds, with future versions intended to scale up in size. It also includes a built-in payload bay that regulates temperature, pressure, vibration and tilt to protect sensitive contents such as patient samples, antivenom or poisoning kits and radioligands or other therapies, according to Rice.

          At first, the company envisioned the mission to be centered around transplants, but saw the product being best suited for a variety of operations.

          “What we realized is that the platform we are building is suited for medicine, but it really underlies a much larger problem of mission-critical transport across industries,” Brent added in the news release. “We are building the fastest, most secure logistics chain for the world’s most sensitive cargo.”

          Haast Autonomous was recognized at the 2026 Oshman Engineering Design Showcase and Competition, where it won Best Aerospace or Transportation Technology. It also performed well in the 2026 Napier Rice Launch Challenge.

          In the future, Haast Autonomous plans to deploy a fleet of aircraft. The software will be designed to assist hospitals in requesting flights and tracking deliveries in real time.

          “The drone is only part of the solution,” Chen also added in the release. “What matters is moving something from point A to point B in a way that fits into how hospitals already operate.”

          Houston scientist wins prestigious Pew Scholar award for brain cancer research

          standout scholar

          Christina Tringides, an assistant professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University, is one of 21 scientists to win a prestigious Pew Biomedical Scholar award.

          She is the first faculty member from Rice to win the distinction, which provides $300,000 over four years for advances in biomedicine, according to the university. The awards are granted to researchers who are in the first few years at the assistant professor level.

          In Tringides’ case, the funding will support her innovative new method of modeling glioblastoma, a common and extremely aggressive form of brain cancer. Thanks to producing its own blood supply, glioblastoma spreads quickly, weaving tendrils of blighted tissue throughout the brain. Because of this, surgery is difficult and conventional therapies ineffective.

          Understanding the way glioblastoma spreads is crucial to the search for a cure. Tringides is using hydrogels that mimic the brain’s extracellular matrix. Using cultures and a microscopic labyrinth, her team can see how the cancer spreads, bonds with neurons and changes cell wall activity. Essentially, Tringides has devised an intelligence test for tumors in hopes of learning how to outsmart them.

          “As cancer crawls through the maze, we can look at how it is interacting with the neurons more and more, and measure how electrical activity is changing as a result,” she said in a news release from Rice.

          Examining how cancer cells grow can reveal which conditional changes slow them down. Finding ways to alter the structure of brain matter in a way that makes it inhospitable to the cancer could lead to therapies that would impede growth or even reverse it. Using her custom-made ersatz brain maze makes it easier to observe changes than it would be in a patient’s brain.

          “Imaging synapses is time-intensive ⎯ it can involve large data files that are hard to visualize, but if we know that the only place where we might have a synapse is this tiny 1-by-4-by-10 micron channel, it makes it much faster and reliable to image them,” Tringides said.

          Born in Ames, Iowa, Tringides received her doctorate in biophysics from Harvard before joining Rice in 2024 through a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) recruitment award.

          Her research was also one of the first four projects to receive research awards through the Rice Brain Institute and TMC Neuro Collaboration Seed Grant Program.

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