Invention of the Year Award: Novel Medical Device by Dr Emer Doheny and Dr Jayne Carberry
A total of 7 Awards were presented by Professor Orla Feely, President, UCD, during an event held at the UCD University Club. Engineers were among the recipients of the Invention of the Year Award, Licence of the Year Award, and Spin-out of the Year Award.
The recipients of the 2025 NovaUCD Invention of the Year Award are, Dr Emer Doheny, UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Dr Jayne Carberry, UCD School of Medicine.
They received the Award for a novel medical device, which they have developed and designed, that allows for the measurement and training of individual oropharyngeal muscles using a moveable oral sensor.
Their invention, which has been patented, has a number of potential clinical applications to address medical conditions, such as dysphagia, or difficulties in swallowing, associated with neurodegenerative disease, and respiratory sleep disorders including obstructive sleep apnoea.
Dr Emer Doheny said, “We are honoured to receive this prestigious Award for our medical device invention which was the result of research funded under an internal UCD STEM challenge project. Our project, which combined the expertise of myself and Jayne in clinical and biomedical engineering, was focused on developing a solution to help people who suffer from respiratory sleep disorders and medical conditions associated with dysphagia.”
Dr Jayne Carberry added, “Our next steps are to secure funding to perform further validation studies of our medical device. These validation studies will incorporate gamification and personalised therapy using AI, and our focus is to ultimately find new digital biomarkers related to dysphagia and obstructive sleep apnoea and to then explore the commercialisation opportunities through NovaUCD.”
Licence of the Year Award: Professor Peter Kennedy's Frequency Synthesis Innovations
Professor Peter Kennedy, a Professor of Microelectronic Engineering at the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and the inventor of novel methods to address ‘wandering spurs’ in the spectrum of frequency synthesizers, which have been licensed to Analog Devices, was named recipient of the 2025 NovaUCD Licence of the Year Award.
Professor Kennedy has over 400 research publications, including 5 US patents, in the fields of oscillator design, hysteresis, neural networks, nonlinear dynamics, chaos communication, mixed-signal test, and frequency synthesis.
Two of the patents of which he is a named inventor relate to novel methods to address the erratic and unwanted time-varying spectral components, known colloquially as ‘wandering spurs’, in the spectrum of frequency synthesisers.
Frequency synthesizers are critical components in modern RF (radio frequency) communication systems. Reduction in wandering spurs is critical for high precision RF applications such as high frequency sensing/sensors, 5G and next-generation wireless communications networks, and high-precision test and measurement equipment.
One of the patents relates to research carried out by Professor Kennedy and his team at UCD, and the other patent relates to earlier work carried out while he was at University College Cork (UCC).
The patents were jointly licensed by UCD and UCC to Analog Devices following a collaboration between UCD and the company which successfully validated the patented methods in industrial frequency synthesizers.
The technology was subsequently implemented in an Analog Device product released during 2024, and the licensing of this technology will lead to the payment of licensing income to UCD and to UCC.
On receiving the 2025 NovaUCD Licence of the Year Award, Professor Peter Kennedy said, “I am honoured to receive this Award, which reflects research focused on addressing the issue of unwanted wandering spurs in the spectrum of frequency synthesisers, carried out over many years by my students and me in UCD and previously in UCC. The Award also demonstrates the value of partnering closely with industry, in this case with Analog Devices, to validate technology prior to licensing, and ultimately deliver significant benefits to both the universities and the industry partner.”
Spin-out of the Year Award: LaNua Medical's Groundbreaking Medical Device
LaNua Medical has been named recipient of the 2025 NovaUCD Spin-out of the Year Award.
LaNua Medical is developing a groundbreaking medical device designed to make minimally invasive, x-ray guided, endovascular treatment of numerous conditions including internal bleeding, vascular malformations, and many benign and malignant tumours safe and effective. This should make procedures quicker and more straightforward for operators, providing a cost-effective solution for healthcare systems and lead to consistent outcomes for patients.
The company was co-founded in 2024 by Dr Eoin O'Cearbhaill and Sajjad Amiri, UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Dr Cormac Farrelly, UCD School of Medicine, along with Tom Fitzmaurice, formerly a Vice-President at Medtronic, following the completion of an Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund research project at the University.
LaNua Medical’s pioneering device, named ECORE™, will help to modernize embolization procedures, a technique used by surgeons and radiologists to control the flow of blood in certain areas of the body. Designed to enhance the safe and targeted delivery of tools used to block blood flow, the device will enter blood vessels deep within the body and form an occlusive barrier.
In a major step for embolization procedures, the ECORE™ device will allow doctors to restrict blood flow in a targeted segment of veins or arteries while still allowing ancillary medical tools (guidewires and catheters) to pass through it.
LaNua is initially targeting treatments in liver cancer patients.
During 2024, LaNua Medical closed a €6 million seed funding round, co-led by Elkstone and Atlantic Bridge, with participation from Enterprise Ireland and Furthr VC, to accelerate product development, gain entry into the US market, and hire staff in roles across R&D and Quality. The company also established offices at NovaUCD and in Galway.
Tom Fitzmaurice, CEO and co-founder of LaNua Medical, said, “It is a great honour to receive this recognition today. We would like to thank NovaUCD for their support throughout our early stages in UCD and as we closed our seed round, spinning out in quarter four last year. It is exciting to see the breadth and depth of talent and skillsets available to a start-up in the Irish MedTech environment as our planned activity accelerates.
We are now focused on building our team in Galway and Dublin and finalising our design activity in 2025. We will complete our device testing and US regulatory filing next year and commence clinical validation of the ECORE™ device in 2027.”
Other 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Award Recipients
The other four 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Award recipients are:
- 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Award: Professor Wenxin Wang, UCD Charles Institute of Dermatology, UCD School of Medicine
- 2025 NovaUCD Consultancy of the Year Award: Dr Siobhan Mullan, UCD School of Veterinary Medicine
- 2025 NovaUCD CEO of the Year Award: Mike McGearty, Meili
- 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Champion of the Year Award: Professor Kevin O’Connor, BiOrbic, Research Ireland Centre for Bioeconomy and UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science.
UCD's Commitment to Delivering Impact through Innovation
Speaking at the event, Professor Orla Feely, UCD, President, said, “UCD is committed to delivering impact from our leading research and innovation across a broad range of disciplines. The 2025 NovaUCD Innovation Awards, which have become a key annual event, recognise the achievements of our research, innovation, and entrepreneurial communities and demonstrate our strength in developing talent and creating and applying knowledge to deliver impact.
I congratulate all who have received this year’s Awards and wish the Awardees every future success as they continue to deliver impact in Ireland and further afield through their commercialisation, consultancy, entrepreneurial, and innovation activities.”
