Hemova Medical
Team Bios
Peter Li
Peter Li has experience in developing medical devices in a previous University-affiliated venture, raising several thousand dollars of funding from business plan competitions. He has research experience at Johns Hopkins University and its Applied Physics Laboratory, including an animal study for a medical device. His background includes a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Entrepreneurship & Management from Johns Hopkins University and is currently on track to graduate with a M.S.E. in Bioengineering Innovation & Design in 2011.
Mary O’Grady
Mary O’Grady is one of the founders of GentleMed LLC, a medical device company currently undergoing licensing agreements. She also has experience in mechanical design of medical devices and writing for patents from her work at Infinite Biomedical Technologies. She received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and will graduate from Johns Hopkins with a M.S.E. in Bioengineering Innovation & Design in 2011.
Fun fact: Santa Claus goes to her church in Anchorage, Alaska
Sherri Hall
Sherri Hall has experience working at a start-up medical device company in Pittsburgh, PA. She was involved with moving a Class III medical device from the bench top to human clinical trials through her contributions in R&D. She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.S. in Bioengineering and will soon graduate from Johns Hopkins University with a M.S.E. in Bioengineering Innovation and Design.
Thora Thorgilsdottir
Thora Thorgilsdottir has a three years of experience in the orthopaedics industry, where she developed and managed a design project for a hospital neck brace from design criteria to product launch. She graduated from the University of Iceland with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and will graduate from Johns Hopkins University with a M.S.E. in Bioengineering Innovation and Design.
Shishira Nagesh
Shishira Nagesh is a Mechanical Engineer with research experience in the areas of Smart Materials, Structures and Design Optimization. She has worked successfully with an industry partner for two years to develop smart seals for automotive panel closure applications. She has also worked on developing and bench-testing a nitinol based mechanical stroke device. She graduated with a B.Tech from the National Institute of Technology, India and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She will graduate from from Johns Hopkins University with a M.S.E. degree in Bioengineering Innovation and Design.
Team fun fact
The team speaks a combined 10 different languages.
Business Summary
Each year, 1.5 million people worldwide and 300,000 people in the US require kidney dialysis in order to live. Blood access devices for dialysis fail in as little as one year, costing $1 billion per year in new surgeries and revision procedures and resulting in high patient morbidity. Hemova Medical has developed a revolutionary form of access that will more than double the lifespan of current devices, saving Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.