Every day, infants with craniosynostosis, a condition where skull bones fuse too early, go undiagnosed until it’s too late for the least invasive treatment. Dr. Daniel Cho, a cleft, craniofacial, and pediatric plastic surgeon at the UW–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, saw this pattern firsthand when he realized that many children were arriving at his clinic too late for minimally invasive surgery. If caught early, the condition can be treated with a small incision and a short hospital stay. But when referrals are delayed, children must undergo a far more complex, high-risk surgery. Determined to ensure more infants receive timely care, Dr. Cho set out to bridge the gap between pediatricians, parents, and specialists.
Through outreach and discovery interviews, he found that many pediatricians lacked the training or confidence to assess head shape abnormalities. Unsure whether a condition would resolve on its own, they often delayed referrals or ordered unnecessary imaging, further prolonging the process. Dr. Cho developed the solution; Craniosure, a smartphone-based tool that uses image analysis to help pediatricians and parents determine whether a child needs specialist evaluation. By streamlining the referral process, Craniosure is transforming the way craniosynostosis is diagnosed and treated.
Craniosure works by analyzing three photos of a child’s head, taken in the clinic or at home. The app’s algorithm assesses whether the child is at high risk for craniosynostosis and, if so, provides a direct referral to the nearest qualified craniofacial team. This ensures that infants receive expert care faster while reducing unnecessary referrals that burden families with long-distance travel and medical expenses. In Wisconsin alone, there are only four plastic surgeons qualified to perform these specialized procedures, making it essential to connect families with the right providers quickly.
Beyond Wisconsin, Craniosure has the potential to revolutionize global access to care. Dr. Cho and his team are preparing to use the app as part of a global surgery outreach initiatives, helping triage cases in underserved regions. By providing a low-cost, accessible screening tool, Craniosure brings expert-level assessment closer to home, maximizing healthcare efficiency and ensuring that more children receive life-changing treatment at the right time.
We asked Dr. Cho to discuss his experience breaking into the entrepreneurial world and the impact of Craniosure:
How has D2P helped you, and what have you learned?
I have a PhD in material science. Though I had worked at a startup before as a scientist, I stayed out of the business side of operations. As Craniosure started developing, we realized that if we stayed in academics, there wasn’t a viable pathway of getting the product into the community. That’s when I met Aimee Arnoldussen through D2P and signed up for Innovation to Market. The entrepreneurial resources we received through D2P programming really helped Craniosure develop a functional business model. We realized as we progressed that the first model we developed was not the best one, but it was so important to have a foundation to work with. It provided me the framework to talk about what I needed as a researcher bringing Craniosure to market. It helped us to be more proactive in how we structure our research. Aimee also really encouraged us to participate in the Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest, which was a structured way for us to develop our business plan further through each of the stages of the competition. If I hadn’t had the guidance from D2P, I would have only focused on the research and then would have had to redo all of the work through an entrepreneurial lens. All of the D2P mentors have been really helpful in helping us get connected through the really robust startup scene here in Madison.
What other entrepreneurial resources/programs have guided you?
We started with Innovation to Market, then we did Igniter. We are now in the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) at UW–Madison. We competed in and won the Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest as well as the Wisconsin Innovation Awards for health care. Because of all these opportunities, we started looking outside of Madison for other resources that might make sense for us. We then won the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Inventors Challenge, which was a national pitch competition for plastic surgery startups and innovations. It was fun for us to be able to share something we’ve been doing here with the greater national plastic surgery group. We just joined Merlin Mentors because we realized that as a group of physicians, we really don’t have the expertise in business. We’ve been able to surround ourselves through all these programs with mentors who have backgrounds in startups, regulatory affairs, IP, and computer software development. The startup community in Madison is extremely tight knit. Everyone really wants to see you succeed. It doesn’t feel like people want to push you down, rather, everyone wants to lift each other up. To have such a robust environment where everyone is super excited and looking to connect others, offer resources, and take time out of their days to answer questions and help you strategize, is something that’s special about Madison.
What’s your current focus with the company?
We’ve been looking to recruit a computer scientist who has the right background to help us with landmarking. The way that our algorithm works is it uses different specific regions of the head to determine ratios, angles, and different qualities that make craniosynostosis different from normal head shapes. We need that to be robust enough. Our primary goal is to get the minimum viable product into the hands of providers. We’re going to screen it in our craniofacial clinic here at American Family Children’s Hospital, then we have several pediatricians who we’re going to coordinate trialing the software with. I think that’s when we’re going to start looking at additional fundraising, because that’s where our capital needs are going to increase significantly.
What are your hopes for the company moving forward?
The thing that has been interesting for me is when I meet a lot of startups and hear about other startup stories, it seems as though the goal is typically to have an exit. That’s a shift in mentality for me because for me, Craniosure is the culmination of my research and clinical interests. It addresses a pain point, a need in the state, nationally, and internationally to improve access to high-quality specialized care. My goal is to put the product out there. I want Craniosure to be used. That’s really what’s driving all our growth and development. Our hope is that we can get enough traction for Craniosure that it becomes standard of care testing for all infants born in the country, if not internationally, because it’s something that pediatricians need to identify.
I think the healthcare system can be more systematic to make sure that every kid is getting screened appropriately and given correct referrals. This is how they can receive high-quality care in a minimally invasive fashion, delivering the best outcomes and helping them reach their best lives.
Why is this project important to you personally?
As a pediatric plastic surgeon, my goal is to help kids look good, feel good, function well, do all the things they want to do, and be who they want to be. I think when I look at rare conditions like craniosynostosis, there are things that a lot of local providers just don’t know what to do. It’s not that they’re bad doctors, it’s that they’ve never been exposed to it and they’re just not sure how to connect the patient to the care that they need. I think tools like Craniosure improve education for providers who are on the front line. It also provides them with resources and reassurance. They’re so busy with seeing so many patients every day because they have extremely busy. Doctors only have about fifteen minutes to evaluate a new baby. It’s important for there to be a tool that can reduce those burdens for them. A lot of the other research that we do in our lab is also looking at disparities across the state. Some of the research that we’ve done shows that in children who are at the lowest socioeconomic group within the state of Wisconsin, even if they show up to the clinic on time for a minimally invasive surgery, some of them are opting to have open surgery because accessibility issues prevent them from seeing an orthotist for helmet therapy or returning for a second surgery to remove the cranial springs. My hope is with Craniosure, we can improve awareness about these conditions and hopefully advocate for policies and support to help our kids.
What advice would you give to other campus innovators who are just starting with exploring the potential of their ideas?
Initially, I didn’t think I had the time to take on a startup. When I met Aimee, she demystified the process. She helped us take it step by step and wouldn’t let us give up. She built the momentum that my team needed. I think that it’s all about taking that first step and reaching out to someone who’s done it. The more I met other founders and mentors, the more I realized that this idea has value. The idea needs just a little bit of support on our end to be able to build it. When you find an idea that you’re passionate about and that will make an impact, people come out of the woodworks to support you. You shouldn’t be afraid to do it.
Is there an experience during the development of your project that surprised you or had a powerful impact on your direction? What did you learn, or how did it change your thinking?
One of the biggest shifts for us was winning the Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest.
All of a sudden, everything shifted. We felt the momentum and the interest and had to capitalize on it. I think that’s when we saw a big inflection point of where our company is going. Another influential moment for Craniosure was the first session of CDL. We met Jen Olson, who eventually became one of our mentors. In one of our meetings, we initially told her briefly about Craniosure, and she loved this idea. But she told us, very blankly, I hate your business model. She sat us down and told us that she had been an executive at the hospital. She knows how children’s hospitals work. She said that the business model was something that was simply not attractive to hospitals. This moment was really great, because it made us question everything. It motivated us to come up with a new plan. Over the past two months, we’ve come up with a completely different business model. It was exciting for us to be able to go back to her and present our new model. She loved it and told us that it would work. This is the impact of having the right person at the right time tell you something that you might not want to hear. It can make a huge difference in the trajectory of your company.
How do you balance the time you must spend on your project with other work and life responsibilities?
When other people look at the hours I spend on my job as a surgeon, running a lab, teaching, and leading this company, it seems out of balance. I think for me, Craniosure is something that takes me away from the clinical and the research side of things. It’s inspiring and exciting to do something new and to learn. What’s made the biggest difference for me is building a great team. I have a couple of co-founders that are part of Craniosure who are all surgeons. Our schedules are all different enough, so if I start something and I need someone to pick up the next day, I have a great team where someone will step in. We do weekly board meetings at 8 p.m., which is an insane time, but that’s the only time that all of us can meet. It’s nice to see everyone else working so hard. Seeing that progress that we make each week really motivates us going into the next week. I think when it comes to creating startups, everyone is going to have to sacrifice something. If you want all the time in the world to dedicate to the company, you’re probably going to quit your primary job. People always ask when are you going to quit and do this full time? The reality is my clinical practice and my research are what make Craniosure work.
Campus is full of bright minds and amazing ideas, but people often do not self-identify as an entrepreneur. Do you connect with that term, and why or why not? Is there another term you’d use to describe what you’re doing with your project?
If you had asked me six months ago, I would not have known the answer. More and more, I’ve been embracing the term. As surgeons, we want to be confident in what we’re doing. We want to know the ins and outs. We want to know the literature. We want to know exactly how things are going to go. Entrepreneurship is about embracing what you don’t know, learning new information, and embracing that risk. I’ve from a surgeon-scientist to more of a surgeon-entrepreneur during my time here in Madison. It’s something that’s brought a lot of excitement and joy in my life.