Susan Eagle, M.D.

VITALNX CORPORATION is the name of an emerging medical-devices venture created by Vanderbilt University Medical and VU Biomedical Engineering faculty and students.

The group has had some early communications with potential investors, according to University sources.

The initiative now known as Vitalnx was initiated by Susan Eagle, M.D., an associate professor in the VU Medical Center division of cardiothoracic anesthesiology. Eagle serves as chief medical officer of the new venture.

Among other things, Vitalnx aims to develop a mobile electrocardiogram device and application, which could help get 12-lead ECG data to awaiting clinical staff (via their smart phones and tablets), from a heart-attack patient who has not yet reached the hospital.

The group is also developing a novel, lightweight and non-invasive device (patent applied) for continuously monitoring peripheral venous pressure (PVP) of fallen combatants for signs of hemorrhage, collapsed lung and shock. The device also helps avert IV infiltration during administration of intravenous fluids or drugs via peripheral intravenous (PIV) catheters. Both the ECG and PIV products are in prototype, in human testing phase.

Eagle shares equally in the startup's equity with five co-owners: Kevin Sexton, M.D. (VUMC resident, surgery), Kyle Hocking (VU School of Engineering [VUSE] biomedical engineering PhD. candidate and a researcher), Richard Boyer, M.D. (a Johns Hopkins-educated biomedical engineer and VU School of Medicine medical student, as well as a former Baxter Healthcare engineer and co-founder of real-time urinalysis-oriented Renal Diagnostics); Colleen Brophy, M.D. (professor of surgery); and, Franz Baudenbacher, Ph.D. (VUSE associate professor of biomedical engineering and physics).

Since joining Vanderbilt in 2008, a portion of Brophy's time has allocated to clinical work at the Nashville Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, on the VU campus; and, she was previously co-founder of an Arizona State University-linked biotechnology startup, AzERx, which was acquired by Orthologic (now Capstone Therapeutics), according to information online. VNC