Indian team among finalists to build Star Trek-style tricorder
BANGLORE: India's team Danvantri is among the 10 finalists of the XPrize competition to develop a Star Trek-style tricorder that can diagnose some 15 diseases and measure 5 vital signs, according to an announcement by the XPrize Foundation late on Wednesday.
Team Danvantri is led by 39-year-old, Chennai-based IT veteran Sridharan Mani, who is also the CEO of the Indian operations of American Megatrends, a US-based software and hardware company founded by Indian Americans S Shankar and Pat Sarma.
The team will now compete for the $10 million prize money, expected to be announced sometime towards the end of 2015. The others in the final 10 include four from the US, and one each from Canada, Taiwan, Slovenia, the UK, and Ireland.
The competition, called Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize, started in 2012 with over 300 teams around the world expressing interest. The eventual registrations were lower, and by the last round, the number of competing teams had come down to 22.
The word tricorder will be familiar to enthusiasts of the Star Trek films and TV serial. In the science fiction entertainment franchise, the doctor on the Starship Enterprise, Dr McCoy, would need to do just a quick sweep with a handheld gadget to diagnose the most obscure of ailments.
XPrize, a non-profit organization that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit mankind, is hoping that its competition would help develop something like a tricorder. Participants have to develop a single medical device that can capture key health metrics and diagnose a set of 15 diseases. The diseases include anemia, diabetes, tuberculosis, hepatitis A, atrial fibrillation (abnormal heart rhythm), sleep apnea, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (a lung disease), ear infection and leukocytosis (indicative of infections and inflammations).
What's more, the device and any associated components must not weigh more than 5 pounds (2.27 kg). Mani says that all the equipment currently used to diagnose these different diseases will require an entire hospital room.
XPrize's hope is that the device will help make healthcare convenient, affordable and accessible to individuals. Most good hospitals around the world have become extremely expensive; and in many cases, long waits to access doctors have become common. A portable and affordable device that can be used at home to diagnose diseases would be a first step towards bypassing these problems.
"Traditional home healthcare products are expensive, and their results are often not accurate," Mani recently told TOI. XPrize's expert panel has determined that, given the advances in fields such as artificial intelligence, wireless sensing, imaging diagnostics, lab-on-a-chip, and molecular biology, it is now possible to develop the kind of accurate, all-in-one device they envisage. The winner will be the team whose technology most accurately diagnoses the diseases, and which provides the best consumer user experience.
As TOI reported recently, Mani's team has already commercialized a small device, controlled by a mobile app, which can check blood pressure, blood oxygen level and temperature. His team is now integrating a lot of other technologies into the device to be able to meet the competition's requirements. For some conditions, the device will combine a high-definition camera and a strip coated with different chemicals that changes colour — depending on the condition — when, say, it is dipped in a urine sample. The camera takes a picture of the strip colour, and the mobile app analyses the image and tells you the condition. Kidney and liver problems are among those proposed to be diagnosed with this method.
Team Danvantri has developed small probes to check for anaemia, for ear infection, for lung capacity, and for ECG/EEG. All of these connect to the main device and/or the phone, which then does the diagnosis.
"In some cases, you can combine certain measures to determine a condition. The ECG level and the blood oxygen level can together give the BP level. It's all about mathematics, being able to develop the right algorithms," says Mani. His father was a math teacher. Mani did a BSc in Physics and then an MBA from the US. Considering the progress Team Danvantri has made, Mani expects the team will be able to keep the entire equipment under 2 pounds (0.9 kg).
BANGLORE: India's team Danvantri is among the 10 finalists of the XPrize competition to develop a Star Trek-style tricorder that can diagnose some 15 diseases and measure 5 vital signs, according to an announcement by the XPrize Foundation late on Wednesday.
Team Danvantri is led by 39-year-old, Chennai-based IT veteran Sridharan Mani, who is also the CEO of the Indian operations of American Megatrends, a US-based software and hardware company founded by Indian Americans S Shankar and Pat Sarma.
The team will now compete for the $10 million prize money, expected to be announced sometime towards the end of 2015. The others in the final 10 include four from the US, and one each from Canada, Taiwan, Slovenia, the UK, and Ireland.
The competition, called Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize, started in 2012 with over 300 teams around the world expressing interest. The eventual registrations were lower, and by the last round, the number of competing teams had come down to 22.
The word tricorder will be familiar to enthusiasts of the Star Trek films and TV serial. In the science fiction entertainment franchise, the doctor on the Starship Enterprise, Dr McCoy, would need to do just a quick sweep with a handheld gadget to diagnose the most obscure of ailments.
XPrize, a non-profit organization that designs and manages public competitions intended to encourage technological development that could benefit mankind, is hoping that its competition would help develop something like a tricorder. Participants have to develop a single medical device that can capture key health metrics and diagnose a set of 15 diseases. The diseases include anemia, diabetes, tuberculosis, hepatitis A, atrial fibrillation (abnormal heart rhythm), sleep apnea, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (a lung disease), ear infection and leukocytosis (indicative of infections and inflammations).
What's more, the device and any associated components must not weigh more than 5 pounds (2.27 kg). Mani says that all the equipment currently used to diagnose these different diseases will require an entire hospital room.
XPrize's hope is that the device will help make healthcare convenient, affordable and accessible to individuals. Most good hospitals around the world have become extremely expensive; and in many cases, long waits to access doctors have become common. A portable and affordable device that can be used at home to diagnose diseases would be a first step towards bypassing these problems.
"Traditional home healthcare products are expensive, and their results are often not accurate," Mani recently told TOI. XPrize's expert panel has determined that, given the advances in fields such as artificial intelligence, wireless sensing, imaging diagnostics, lab-on-a-chip, and molecular biology, it is now possible to develop the kind of accurate, all-in-one device they envisage. The winner will be the team whose technology most accurately diagnoses the diseases, and which provides the best consumer user experience.
As TOI reported recently, Mani's team has already commercialized a small device, controlled by a mobile app, which can check blood pressure, blood oxygen level and temperature. His team is now integrating a lot of other technologies into the device to be able to meet the competition's requirements. For some conditions, the device will combine a high-definition camera and a strip coated with different chemicals that changes colour — depending on the condition — when, say, it is dipped in a urine sample. The camera takes a picture of the strip colour, and the mobile app analyses the image and tells you the condition. Kidney and liver problems are among those proposed to be diagnosed with this method.
Team Danvantri has developed small probes to check for anaemia, for ear infection, for lung capacity, and for ECG/EEG. All of these connect to the main device and/or the phone, which then does the diagnosis.
"In some cases, you can combine certain measures to determine a condition. The ECG level and the blood oxygen level can together give the BP level. It's all about mathematics, being able to develop the right algorithms," says Mani. His father was a math teacher. Mani did a BSc in Physics and then an MBA from the US. Considering the progress Team Danvantri has made, Mani expects the team will be able to keep the entire equipment under 2 pounds (0.9 kg).
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment