Zhen Xu knew that most people thought it was impossible to use an ultrasound machine to destroy tumors inside the body. But Zhen was still a University of Michigan Ph.D. student; she decided she could afford to try. After years of testing how to control the high-intensity sound waves, that decision paid off and a new, non-invasive medical procedure was born. In 2009, Zhen co- founded HistoSonics, a Plymouth, Minnesota company whose non-invasive platform liquifies and destroys tumors at the sub cellular level.

HistoSonics was acquired in August 2025 for $2.25 billion by a consortium of top-tier investors that included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and PayPal and Palantir Technologies co-founder Peter Thiel acquired a majority stake in August 2025 in HistoSonics. The sale made HistoSonics the second-largest venture capital-backed medical device exit ever, excluding IPOs or public company acquisitions

Midwest Moxie's executive producer is Audrey Nowakowski. She produced this episode. Subscribe to Midwest Moxie wherever you get your podcasts. And if you love Midwest Moxie as much as we do, help us out by posting a review.

Omar Farha discovered in graduate school at UCLA that he was wowed by Metal-Organic Frameworks – MOFs as they’re called by chemists. MOFs were like sponges that could soak up toxic gases and other health hazards -- one of the most exciting and oft cited areas of chemistry. So when Omar arrived at Northwestern University in 2007 it took him just four years to find two like-minded co-founders and start NuMat. The Chicago company designs custom MOFs that provide chemical protection, safe storage of toxic gases, and carbon reduction in energy intensive processes. NuMat has three facilities -- in Illinois, Wisconsin and South Korea -- employs about 80 people and has raised $78 million.

Midwest Moxie's executive producer is Audrey Nowakowski. She produced this episode. Subscribe to Midwest Moxie wherever you get your podcasts. And if you love Midwest Moxie as much as we do, help us out by posting a review.

Graham Colditz is an internationally known breast cancer prediction expert. Joy Jiang is a young biostatistician. ​​Together they created Prognosia’s cutting edge software.

Graham Colditz is an internationally recognized scientist who’s written more than one thousand research papers and created several award-winning models for predicting women’s breast cancer risk. But it wasn’t until a young biostatistician named Joy Jiang (Jee-ang) arrived at Washington University in St. Louis that the idea of a startup took hold. The two developed AI technology that analyzes subtle changes in mammograms over time and predicts a woman’s five-year risk for cancer. Then in 2024, Graham and Joy co-founded Prognosia to commercialize their software. A little more than a year later, Prognosia was acquired for an undisclosed price by Lunit, a South Korean company whose AI software helps doctors detect cancer.

Midwest Moxie's executive producer is Audrey Nowakowski. She produced this episode. Subscribe to Midwest Moxie wherever you get your podcasts. And if you love Midwest Moxie as much as we do, help us out by posting a review.