OUR STORY & PUBLISHED WORK
Purpose-built for delicate anatomy. Designed for every procedure that starts with access.
OUR STORY
Reducing Access Trauma With a Gentler Way In.
Accordia Surgical began at Johns Hopkins, where biomedical engineer Selena Shirkin worked with the Center for Fetal Therapy and fetal surgeon Dr. Ahmet Baschat to build a radially expanding sheath that reduced access trauma in fetal surgical procedures. This sheath would insert at a small initial diameter and widen as larger instruments pass through, gently stretching tissue instead of cutting it.
However, to sustain our mission, we needed to find a broader application for our technology. Through more than 100 physician interviews, we found the same problem in endovascular procedures. In structural heart interventions, reaching the diameter a large-bore device needs means upsizing the access site one exchange at a time, and every exchange adds trauma to the vessel. Our expanding sheath offers one access site that grows with the procedure, accommodating larger instruments while reducing damage to blood vessels.
That shift is why Fetal Therapy Technologies became Accordia Surgical. Today, with tested prototypes, peer-reviewed research and non-dilutive grants behind us, we are bringing radial expansion to structural heart and endovascular care first.
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01 · ORIGIN
Johns Hopkins Center for Fetal Therapy
Radial expansion developed for the most delicate tissue in surgery.
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02 · DISCOVERY
100+ physician interviews
The same access problem, at scale, in endovascular procedures.
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03 · TODAY
Accordia Surgical
Structural heart and endovascular access first.
PUBLISHED WORK
Building the Evidence for Radial Expansion.
We pair clinical insight with engineering research to guide safer access. Our first studies were in fetal surgery, and their findings translate to other delicate access applications, including endovascular procedures.
We are replicating our Prenatal Diagnosis experiment in bovine carotid artery tissue in a pressurized circuit model, with promising initial results.
PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS · 2026
Radial Expansion of Chorioamniotic Membranes After Perforation Causes Less Damage Than Fixed Diameter Instruments
Radial expansion reduces tissue damage in other surgical fields, but had not been studied in fetal surgery, where placental membranes have limited healing potential. We compared radial expansion with the fixed-diameter instruments used as the clinical standard.
Finding: radial expansion created less membrane damage than the clinical standard.
Shirkin S, Yu A, McAlexander E, Murray J, Baschat A. Prenatal Diagnosis. 2026:1–10. doi:10.1002/pd.70136
Read the paper →FETAL DIAGNOSIS AND THERAPY · 2025
Fetoscopic Observation of Intrauterine Operative Port Placements during Laparotomy-Assisted Fetal Myelomeningocele Closure
Using real surgical footage, we examined how current clinical-standard access tools affect the amniotic membrane during fetal procedures.
Finding: mechanical membrane damage occurred during device insertion, pointing to how access can be made less traumatic.
Shirkin SA, Snelson MN, McAlexander ED, Poosarla A, Kalnitskaya G, Yu AS, Logsdon E, Wolfson D, Miller JL, Rosner M, Kush ML, Baschat AA. Fetal Diagn Ther. 2025. doi:10.1159/000546666
Read the paper →CAUTION: Investigational device. Not available for sale in the United States.