Neonatal Airway Monitoring System

After 30 years of development, a medical device designed to continuously monitor the airways of the tiniest ventilated patients could become the standard of care for babies worldwide. Since 2016, five neonatal intensive care units in the U.S. have been using what George Wodicka and his students later invented as a solution: the first and only FDA-approved medical device that alerts nurses when a baby’s breathing tube is in the wrong position or obstructed.

To make the device available to babies in every NICU, one of the world’s largest medical technology companies, Medtronic, recently added the Purdue invention to its product line as the SonarMedTM Airway Monitoring System. The company adopted the technology through its acquisition of SonarMed Inc. in December 2020, a startup Wodicka co-founded to bring the device to market.

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Known as the “Cradle of Astronauts,” Purdue University's College of Engineering’s long list of pioneers includes Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earhart. Purdue Engineering is among the largest in the United States and includes 13 academic programs and ranked Top 10 nationwide by U.S. News and World Report.

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