3 Houston innovators to know this week

Who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Joanna Nathan of Prana Thoracic, James Rees of BWT, and Aimee Gardner of SurgWise. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know — a special Labor Day edition, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from human resources to medical devices — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Joanna Nathan, CEO and founder of Prana Thoracic

Joanna Nathan joins the Houston Innovators Podcast and explains why she's taken on leading a medical device startup. Photo courtesy of Joanna Nathan

If there was a Houston innovation ecosystem playing card, Joanna Nathan would definitely have BINGO by now. From starting a startup while a student at Rice University and being an early hire of medical device company Saranas to leading investment at Johnson & Johnson's Center for Device Innovation, Nathan is headed back to the founder seat with Prana Thoracic, a new company planning to equip physicians with a better tool for lung cancer intervention.

"Unlike breast, prostate, and other types of cancers, we historically have not actively screened for lung cancer," Nathan says on this week's Houston Innovation Podcast. "Screening has only just begun in this world, and because of that, physicians still need the right tools to take early screening information and turn it into early intervention."

Last month, Nathan, who serves as CEO of the company, and Prana announced that Nucore Medical Inc., its wholly owned subsidiary, has been awarded a $3 million grant from CPRIT. Click here to read more and stream the podcast episode.

James Rees, chief impact officer at Botanic Water Technologies

James Rees is the Houston-based chief impact officer at BWT. Photo via LinkedIn

This probably isn't breaking news, but the world is on the midst of a water crisis. More than 2 million Americans don’t have access to clean drinking water, according to one study by the U.S. Water Alliance group.

To help close that water gap, international firm, Botanical Water Technologies, has plans to expand its presence in the United States with the Houston region being a strategic area to roll out the implementation of a patented water filtration technology. In addition, the group is launching a blockchain enabled trading platform with Fujitsu to help support the business.

“Water is finite,” says Houston-based James Rees, chief impact officer at BWT. “Due to global growth and climate conditions, we are going to have between 20 to 30 percent less water available to us by 2025. Communities are facing issues with water infrastructure. Some communities don't have water. This is where BWT plans to come in to help.” Click here to read more.Click here to read more.

Aimee Gardner, CEO and co-founder of SurgWise

Aimee Gardner is the CEO and president of Houston-based SurgeWise. Photo via surgwise.com

Over the course of the summer, Aimee Gardner has been writing strategic columns for startups with hiring tips. Her articles have focused on scaling quickly, why not to just trust your gut when hiring, and attracting and retaining a diverse workforce.

Gardner's advice is especially keen since she herself is a startup founder — but also has a Master's degree in organizational psychology. For years, she's been advising both her clients at her company SurgWise Consulting, but also students at Baylor College of Medicine.

"If your startup has gotten to the point of being able to grow the team, it is clear that ample vision, strategy, and innovation has been dedicated to the mission up until this point. Hiring in the next round of team members is not a process that should undergo any less dedication," she writes in one of her articles. "Ensuring that those around you share your vision, goals, and have a complementary set of skills and attributes will be critical to ensure success in your company’s growth and achievements." Click here to read her guest columns,

Consider these evidence-backed hiring tips before scaling your startup's team. Photo via Getty Images

Houston expert: How to scale your startup team quickly and efficiently

guest column

Startups often use the first rounds of funding to bring in key individuals who will help make the company vision a reality. But hiring the right talent is not an easy task, and ensuring the right team is in place is important now more than ever during the early stages of your company’s growth.

Fortunately, there is a science to employee selection. In fact, there is entire field — Industrial & Organizational Psychology — dedicated to providing professional guidelines, best practices, and over 100 years of evidence to support recommendations into identifying talent an effective, efficient, and equitable manner.

From this field, we know that the first step to hiring in the right talent for your startup is to perform a thorough job analysis. Whether you are bringing in a new CEO, a vice president of sales, or extra hands for your technology platform, gaining consensus among your team about the competencies and attributes required to effectively perform in a new role is critical.

It sounds simple, but it is actually a rarity for organizational stakeholders to get together and comprehensively map out what the role entails and what candidate qualities are necessary to meet those requirements and expectations. Factoring things in such as early-stage demands, future landscape, and organizational culture will help create a list of competencies and attributes needed to be optimally effective in the role, beyond just professional experience and certifications.

After prioritizing the list of competencies and qualities deemed vital for candidates, you will then want to prioritize the list based on importance, how frequently they are required in the role, and the extent to which each is required upon hire —versus being easily trained or acquired on the job. Those at the top of the list should be directly assessed during the candidate screening and selection process. Whether it is through work samples, written assessments, situational judgment tests, or interviews, creating a diverse lineup of candidate screening processes will help ensure you are able to measure the whole person.

Because selection decisions can be high stakes — both for the candidate and your company — ensuring these assessments are directly related to the position, data-driven, and equitable will be key for maximizing the utility and legal defensibility of your selection system. For example, implementing unstructured interviews is common practice in many organizations large and small.

However, what the data shows is clear: structured interviews — those that consist of a pre-defined list of questions related to the role that are used for every candidate, use standard interview rating tools, and involve interviewers who have been trained to conduct structured interviews and use the rating tools — are more efficient and effective in accurately assessing job candidates.

Furthermore, the structure involved in this interview format reduces the opportunity for common biases and inappropriate questions to emerge during the interview process, thereby enhancing the likelihood for making equitable selection decisions and avoiding potential for legal litigation. Thus, it is important to ensure every screening tool or process has been thoughtfully considered and implemented from an efficiency, effectiveness, and equity lens. Making a shortlist of candidates and final offers based on the data accumulated through these processes will maximize the likelihood of identifying best fit candidates based on comprehensive data points.

If your startup has gotten to the point of being able to grow the team, it is clear that ample vision, strategy, and innovation has been dedicated to the mission up until this point. Hiring in the next round of team members is not a process that should undergo any less dedication. Ensuring that those around you share your vision, goals, and have a complementary set of skills and attributes will be critical to ensure success in your company’s growth and achievements.

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Aimee Gardner is the co-founder of SurgWise, a tech-enabled consulting firm for hiring surgeons, and associate dean at Baylor College of Medicine.

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Kelly Pracht of nVenue, Aimee Gardner of SurgWise, and Kelly Avant of Mercury. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from sports tech to venture capital — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Kelly Pracht, CEO and co-founder of nVenue

nVenue's proprietary predictive analytics appear at the bottom right corner of the screen on Apple TV broadcasts. Photo via nvenue.com

Next time you're watching an Astros game on Apple TV, check the bottom right-hand side of the screen. That prediction data comes by way of a Texas startup with deep Houston roots. nVenue, co-founded by Houstonian Kelly Pracht, struck a deal earlier this year that allowed her data-driven sports analytics platform on the screens of baseball viewers this season.

"In under two weeks we structured the deal, convinced them it worked, pulled together every bit of testing we could — by then we only had one week of pre-season games to test — and we pulled it off," Pracht says.

The technology has a lot of potential when it comes to microbetting — a part of sports fandom that's growing by the second. Click here to read more.

Aimee Gardner, CEO and president of SurgWise

SurgeWise is giving surgical teams the right support for hiring. Photo via SurgWise.com

Hiring surgeons is a whole thing — tons of paperwork, inequitable and archaic processes, and lots of medical practitioners' time wasted. Five years ago, Aimee Gardner came up with a solution and founded SurgWise Consulting, where she serves as president and CEO.

"We help provide assessments to help screen competencies and attributes that people care about," Gardner says. "(Those) are really hard to assess, but really differentiate people who really thrive in training in their careers and people who don't."

Now, Gardner is tapping into the last five years of data she's accumulated and has big plans for developing a tech platform for her solution. Click here to read more.

Kelly Avant, investment associate at Mercury Fund

Kelly Avant, investment associate at Houston-based Mercury Fund, shares how and why she made her way into the venture capital arena. Photo courtesy of Mercury

Kelly Avant's resume might not make sense to you at first. She went from a gender studies major in undergrad, followed by a stint in the Peace Corps, before heading to law school. After moving on to get her MBA over her JD, Avant realized a way she could really make the biggest impact: venture capital.

"VC is an awesome way to shape the future in a more positive way because you literally get to wire money to the most innovative thinkers, who are building solutions to the world’s problems," Avant tells InnovationMap.

Avant joined the Mercury Fund team last year as an MBA associate before joining full time as investment associate. Now, after completing her MBA from Rice University this month, Avant tells InnovationMap why she's excited about this new career in investment in a Q&A. Click here to read more.


SurgWise is giving surgical teams the right support for hiring. Photo via Getty Images

Houston startup equips medical teams with data-driven hiring tool

staffing up

A surgeon spends over a decade in school and residency perfecting their medical skills, but that education doesn't usually include human resources training. Yet, when it comes to placing candidates into surgical programs, the hiring responsibilities fell on the shoulders of surgeons.

Aimee Gardner, who has her PhD in organized psychology, saw this inefficiency first hand.

"I worked in a large surgery department in Dallas right out of graduate school and quickly learned how folks are selected into residency and fellowship programs and all the time that goes into it — time spent by physicians reviewing piles and piles of like paper applications and spending lots and lots and of hours interviewing like hundreds of candidates," Gardner tells InnovationMap. "I was just really shocked by the inefficiencies from just a business and workforce perspective."

And things have only gotten worse. There are more applicants hitting the scene every year and they are applying to more hospitals and programs. Future surgeons used to apply for 20 or so programs — now it’s more like 65 on average. According to her research, Gardner says reviewing these applications cost lots of time and money, specifically $100,000 to fill five spots annually just up to the interviewing phase of the process.

Five years ago, Gardner came up with a solution to this “application fever,” as she describes, and all the inefficiencies, and founded SurgWise Consulting, where she serves as president and CEO.

"We help provide assessments to help screen competencies and attributes that people care about," Gardner says. "(Those) are really hard to assess, but really differentiate people who really thrive in training in their careers and people who don't."

Aimee Gardner is the CEO and president of Houston-based SurgWise. Photo via surgwise.com

These are the non-technical skills, like the professionalism, interpersonal skills, and communication. While SurgWise began as a service-oriented consulting company, the company is now ready to tap technology to expand upon its solution. The work started out of Houston Methodist, and SurgWise is still working with surgery teams there. She says they've accumulated tons of data that can be leveraged and streamlined.

"We're now pivoting from a very intimate client approach to a more scalable offering. Every year we assess essentially around 80 percent of all the people applying to be future surgeons — those in pediatric surgery, vascular surgery, and more,” Gardner says. “We’ve used kind of the last five years of data and experiences to create a more scalable, easy-to-integrate, and off-the-shelf solution.”

Gardner says her solution is critical for providing more equity in the hiring process.

“One of our goals was to create more equitable opportunities and platforms to assess folks because many of the traditional tools and processes that most people use in this space have lots of opportunity for bias and a high potential for disadvantaging individuals from underrepresented groups," she says. "For example, letters of recommendation are often a very insider status. If you went to some Ivy League or your parents were in health care and they know someone, you have that step up from a networking and socioeconomic status standpoint."

Personal statements and test scores are also inequitable, because they tend to be better submissions if people have money for coaching.

SurgWise hopes to lower the number of programs future surgeons apply to too to further streamline the process. She hopes to do this through an app and web tool that can matchmake people to the right program.

“Our ultimate goal is to create a platform for applicants to obtain a lot more information about the various places to which they apply to empower them to make more informed decisions, so that they don't have to apply to a hundred places," Gardner says. "We want to essentially create a match-style app that allows them to input some data and tell us 'here's what I'm looking for here are my career goals and any preferences I have.'”

While that tool is down the road, Gardner says SurgWise is full speed ahead toward launching the data-driven hiring platform. The bootstrapped company hopes to raise early venture funding this summer in order to hire and grow its team.

“As we continue to consider this app that I talked about and some of the other opportunities to scale to other specialties we're gonna start looking for a series A funding later this summer.”

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Houston researchers develop dissolvable implant for targeted cancer drug delivery

cancer research

Researchers at Houston Methodist have developed a biodegradable implant that can be used to safely and consistently deliver drug treatments to tumors and then dissolve without the need for further surgery.

The implant is only the size of a grain of rice, but its potential is staggering. The biodegradable nanofibrous drug-eluting seed (b-NDES) works as a reservoir parked inside a soft tumor, where it can slowly release immune-stimulating drugs over time. This overcomes a consistent problem with drugs such as immune checkpoint inhibitors. Normal systemic administration sees comparatively little of the drug making its way to the tumor, with most of it circulating throughout the body. The b-NDES is like deploying a small guerrilla fighting force embedded in enemy territory, doing maximum damage to the entrenched tumor.

"To improve cancer treatment, we're trying to start a fire inside the tumor itself," Corrine Chua, associate professor in the Center for BioNanoengineering at Houston Methodist Research Institute, said in a news release. "By activating immune cells directly within the tumor microenvironment, those cells can then travel throughout the body and seek out cancer wherever it exists. The b-NDES platform was developed to help keep therapeutic drugs concentrated inside tumors while minimizing exposure to healthy tissues.”

Chua co-led the study with Alessandro Grattoni, chair and director of the Center for BioNanoengineering at Houston Methodist Research Institute.

The study included support from the Nancy Owens Breast Cancer Foundation and the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute.

Chau and Grattoni used preclinical models of triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of cancer that is estrogen receptor-negative, progesterone receptor-negative and HER2-negative. Because of the receptor negativity, some popular treatments like tamoxifen and trastuzumab are ineffective. Chemotherapy has been shown to be the best course of action.

The b-NDES implant is deployed alongside radiation drugs. It keeps the drugs focused on the tumor, reducing the amount of harmful side effects typically seen when drugs are circulated more widely in the body. In 60 percent of the models, tumors were eliminated and did not cause side effects beyond the tumor site. Once the drugs have been deployed, the implant breaks down naturally.

While promising, more research will have to be done to expand use to other tumor types.

"Although the study focused on triple-negative breast cancer models, the approach could have broader applications for solid tumors," Grattoni added in the release. "It could potentially be used in cancers where there is a tumor lesion accessible for placement, including pancreatic or lung cancers."

New Houston platform Same Day Reels launches for on-demand content creation

In The Moment

If an event doesn't happen on Instagram, did it even really happen? In today's social media-driven age of branding and audience engagement, the answer increasingly is no.

Houston entrepreneur Karen De Amat is looking to fill the online content creation needs of companies with her new venture, Same Day Reels, which launched in early August. It will serve as a platform to connect companies and brands with talent that can help turn an event into a viral moment as it is happening.

"Events move quickly, and social media moves even faster,” said De Amat. “Same Day Reels was built to help brands capture the moment while it still matters. We are creating a more efficient way for businesses and creators to work together. Brands need content faster, and creators need more opportunities to turn their talent into real work. Same Day Reels brings those needs together.”

The company is focused on adding livestreams and concurrent short video content to "activations, launches, fundraisers, grand openings, conferences, hospitality experiences, and private celebrations." Such content can significantly increase the visibility of a product or brand according to digital marketing brands like Wyzowl, whose data found 63 percent of people in 2026 prefer to learn about new products via short video.

Packages offered by Same Day Reels will include filming, editing, and publishing content within hours of the targeted event.

De Amat says that her content creation platform will be a way to preserve the excitement of events and launches by enshrining them with immediate social media-driven memories.

“Event content is no longer just something you post after the fact,” De Amat said. “It is part of how people experience, remember and share the moment.”

Previously, De Amat is also the founder and CEO of Social Behavior, an influencer marketing company she launched from her home in 2014. It quickly garnered an array of clients and thrust De Amat into the spotlight, including numerous appearances on Fox 26's The Isiah Factor. Influencer Marketing Hub named her one of the top CEOs of influencer marketing companies in Houston in 2025.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Bristol Myers Squibb to build $2.3B Houston pharma manufacturing campus

coming soon

New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb Co. has officially named Houston as the home of its new state-of-the-art manufacturing site.

The 60,000-square-foot facility represents a $2.3 billion investment, according to a news release. It is expected to create 500 skilled jobs and will be located in Houston's Generation Park.

BMS first announced that it was considering Houston among 16 other cities for the facility in May. The new hub will manufacture small molecule, biologic and antibody-drug conjugates and is part of a $40 billion commitment to invest in the United States over five years. Construction is slated to begin next year, with the facility coming online in 2030.

"We're building the domestic manufacturing capabilities needed to deliver the next generation of medicines and support future scientific breakthroughs. Houston and the state of Texas offer the talent, infrastructure, and partnership needed to help bring that vision to life," Christopher Boerner, CEO and board chair of BMS, said in the release.

The new facility will feature a modular, multi-modal design, which will allow the company to reconfigure and add to its manufacturing capabilities over time. BMS says it expects the facility to "(grow) in scale and capability well beyond its opening configuration."

"Our decision to build this state-of-the-art manufacturing campus in Houston, Texas, reflects our confidence in the region’s ability to support a world-class, digitally advanced supply operation,” Karin Shanahan, EVP and chief supply chain and operations officer of BMS, added in the release. “This facility is designed to deliver the speed, quality, and reliability that patients depend on, combining flexible, modular manufacturing with advanced digital capabilities to ensure consistent supply across multiple modalities. It strengthens our ability to operate with resilience and positions us to reliably deliver medicines to patients today while adapting future demands.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shared that the state has granted BMS a $4.89 million Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) grant for the project. TEF grants, administered by the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office, support business relocation or expansion projects that create "new, good-paying jobs in the community and attract significant new capital investment to the state." The development is also a qualified project under the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation (JETI) program.

“Texas is a global hub for life sciences, where today’s innovations shape the future of healthcare,” Abbott said in a news release. “This $2.3 billion investment by Bristol Myers Squibb in the dynamic biotech ecosystem in Houston is a testament to the depth of our skilled workforce and the pipeline of talent coming through our nation-leading technical colleges and research universities. With lower operating costs and easy access to markets across the U.S. and the world, Texas drives affordability for consumers.”

"Bristol Myers Squibb’s announcement is a tremendous win for Texas and the Houston region, further reinforcing our position as a premier destination for life sciences and advanced manufacturing,” added Greater Houston Partnership President and CEO Steve Kean.

Last fall, Eli Lilly and Co. selected Generation Park, a 4,300-acre, master-planned commercial district near Lake Houston, for its $6.5 billion manufacturing plant. More than 300 locations in the U.S. competed for the factory. Read more here.

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