Scientists Win $2.6 Million For Star Trek Tricorder Device (vocativ.com)

The Qualcomm Foundation, along with the XPRIZE Foundation, "announced the winning team of its nearly four-year-long global competition to develop a functional, easily usable tricorder," reports Vocativ. The Pennsylvania-based Final Frontier Medical Devices team was the first place winner, receiving the top prize of $2.6 million, while Boston-based Dynamical Biomarkers nabbed $1 million. From the report: Led by Dr. Basil Harris, a Philadelphia emergency room physician, the team was mostly made out of family and friends Harris coaxed into volunteering their free time on the weekend. By contrast, Dynamical Biomarkers had 50 scientists and programmers, mostly paid, and was sponsored by the Taiwanese government and Taiwan-based cellphone company HTC. The device kit developed by Final Frontier, called DxtER, uses non-invasive sensors that collect data from the user and combines that with an AI frontloaded with information in the field of clinical emergency medicine to come with a diagnosis. The device currently operates on an iPad tablet, but future versions should work equally fine on a smartphone as well. The device, ideally, would allow patients to then send their readings to their doctors so they could collaborate on their health care. According to an interview Harris held with the Washington Post, DxtER can diagnose up to 34 medical conditions in its present design. The device developed by Dynamical Biomarkers could reach up to 50, team leader and Harvard Medical School professor Chung-Kang Peng, told the Post, given it surpasses the five-pound weight limit imposed by the competition guidelines.

Comments

Medical tricorder

[Okian Warrior]

The competition appears to be for a medical tricorder.

(There are legitimate science tricorder projects as well.)

Fifty-ish medical conditions is a very good start, and I can only imagine that adding more and different sensors will allow such a system to discriminate between more conditions in the future (do these devices ask for human input of symptoms or history?).

Of course, we could never get these approved for use in the USA - the 3.8 million noted in the article would only be a drop in the bucket compared to the costs of certification. If a single drug costs $2.5 billion for certification (and hearing aids cost $5000 and up), imagine how much it would cost to certify an autodoc for 50 diseases!

But this should work quite well in developing countries.

Re:Medical tricorder

[PsyMan]

I think it would work quite well in any country where healthcare is seen as a basic human right not a privilage. More importantly though, I will put up a prize fund of $10 for a fully functional holodeck that can be retrofitted to my 12' x 12' garden shed as I want to try out a new Dixon Hill program.

Re:Medical tricorder

[wisnoskij]

Fairly certain that drugs cost money to certify because they can harm the taker. A piece of software used in medical based calculations would not even need to be certified.

Re:Medical tricorder

[CanadianMacFan]

You don't think that if it misdiagnosed a condition and the patient was given the wrong treatment it might harm them? These devices will definitely have to be certified but once they are shown to work the first couple should have an easy time finding funding because overworked machines don't make mistakes. The insurance companies in the US will insist that they be used. When you come in for your appointment or to the ER instead of taking the vitals like they do now they will just use this. The basic measurements will be wirelessly transmitted to the computer and it will perform it's analysis.

Re:Medical tricorder

[wisnoskij]

I think the actual diagnosis part will either have to be stripped or just considered raw data that a doctor can use to come to a diagnosis.
As it stands now we do not have any certification program to allow anything to make medical diagnosis other than a medical doctor degree, and this tricorder would never pass the exams.

Re:Medical tricorder

[Tony Isaac]

23andMe was banned from producing health analysis reports by the FDA in 2013, and recently was finally approved to release certain health reports after a lengthy, expensive process.

Yes, a device such as a medical tricorder would certainly have to be certified by the FDA in the US.

Re:Medical tricorder

[Actually, I do RTFA]

If a single drug costs $2.5 billion for certification

That would be a very different world.

You are misreading an article that was misrestating research. First, half that value just imputed from the long time between patent and approval - this was greatly exacerbated by drug companies moving to filing patents very early in the R&D cycle. In other words, $1.2B was actually just lost profits some guy thought companies should have. But, really you could just as easily claim that limited patents, instead of longer ones cost $1.2B. What it really implies is that most drug research is so uninovative that its a race to the patent office. That's a good thing for everyone. For the $1.4B of development and testing cost, with most of the money going to testing early on.

And, for fun, your anti-FDA point falls down, as this was a worldwide survey.

Re:Medical tricorder

[MobyDisk]

As someone who writes such software for the medical industry, I can attest that it most definitely needs to be certified. The two main areas of concern are misdiagnosis and misassociation of data (industry term for mixing-up patient results). A false negative result could kill someone since they either get no treatment or delayed treatment. A false positive results in incorrect or unnecessary treatment. Mixing up results causes both, potentially en masse.

Re:Medical tricorder

[MobyDisk]

As it stands now we do not have any certification program to allow anything to make medical diagnosis other than a medical doctor degree

That is not true. We do indeed have such a certification program. I write software that must pass such certification. Here's a brief overview of how this happens:

Suppose you urinate in a cup, and send that sample to a lab, and the lab personnel put that sample it into a Qiagen Symphony, or a BD Viper XTR, or a Roche Cobas; Or suppose you go to Walgreens and the employee with no degree whatsoever sticks a swap up your nose, and inserts the swab into a BD Veritor. In both cases, the medical instrument diagnoses the medical condition. The hardware+software made the diagnosis, not the human. The company that made that medical instrument got FDA approval for the hardware + software combination to perform a diagnosis. It's called a Pre-Market Approval (PMA). The PMA submission states what conditions must be met in order for the hardware+software to be viable. Ex: For a Veritor, it probably says "any schmoe with 15 minutes of training is sufficient." The other 3 instruments probably say "This certification applies only if the customer is in a BSL-3 lab following CLIA level 3 practices used by a lab technicial with blah blah training, using certain chemicals that meet certain rules..." Note that in the Walgrees+Veritor case there's no doctor involved anywhere. In the lab scenario, a doctor ordered the test. In both cases, no human being sees the raw data. Even a doctor does not have the knowledge required to turn the raw data into a diagnosis. That required a team of engineers, doctors, and statisticians to develop.

Re:"can diagnose up to 34 medical conditions"

[rossdee]

And 2 of those are

"He's dead, Jim"

"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it"

You're right

[Okian Warrior]

So that's like what, "up to" 0.000001% of them?

Also, if you're going to blatantly rip off Star Trek, at least rip off the good stuff. The ipads and the handheld communicators and the touchscreens every-fucking-where and the obtrusive diversity and social justice are great and all, but we've made practically zero progress toward warp drive or transporters, and the vague, fumbling gestures in the direction of holodecks are so far unimpressive at best.

You're right. This was an ill-advised project that didn't even *try* to duplicate anything interesting from the star trek universe.

Furthermore, it's practically useless because it only diagnoses common ailments, and not very many of those either.

It's not like self-driving cars: It'll never be improved upon - at least, not to the point where it diagnoses even a small fraction of the total number of diseases, and it will never be more accurate in the things it *does* diagnose than a real human doctor.

I don't know why people even bother trying these sorts of things.

They could have done so much more. I mean, warp drives would have been sooooo much more useful!

Re:You're right

[drewsup]

WTF... really? A tricorder is "just" about do-able with the tech we have now, its a first step, which will lead to more steps, and finally a working device. Warp drives? Not at all do-able, too much power needed, transporters....info only right now... if you want something really cool from ST that should be next on list...its gravity plating, cant survive in space too long without it....energy shields would be needed first also... hitting even a tiny grain of sand at even 1/100 th of relativistic speeds is a major concern....

Re:You're right

[Lord Crc]

Time to recalibrate the sarcasm detector I think :)

Re:You're right

[Antique Geekmeister]

> WTF... really? A tricorder is "just" about do-able with the tech we have now, its a first step,

Considering that most of the physics is not feasible, I suspect you're quite confused about "what is doable". Difficult if not impossible factors include:

1) Enormous stored information about numerous engineering and medical subjects to correctly identify the measured results.
2) Measurement of physical structures and energy throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, probing of remote mechanical, organic, and chemical systems without applying significant energy that would distort the system and without any destructive analysis.
3) Isolated measurement and mapping of local weather and environments internal sensors, without communicating with a larger network of devices that might provide more interpretable data.
4) The ability to differentiate biologically and without physical tissue sampling between alien races that are, nonetheless, mostly the same species since they can successfully breed.

The list goes on. One of the critical missing factors is the ability to make detailed chemical analysis without taking a sample. _Nothing_ today can do that, and there is no sign of any technology in modern research that can. Even spectral analysis without exposing the subject to a well defined light source such as a laser is limited by the overlap of the responses of similar complex spectral responses that obscure spectral response without purified samples.

Re:"can diagnose up to 34 medical conditions"

[K. S. Kyosuke]

the obtrusive diversity and social justice

You mean the part where all Klingons are warlike and all humans are great negotiatiors and all Ferengi are greedy and nobody can believe that doctor Reyga is actually a scientist? ;)

Re:"can diagnose up to 34 medical conditions"

[Anonymous Coward]

Never watched Voyager, I guess.

Re:"can diagnose up to 34 medical conditions"

[Anonymous Coward]

There were mixed messages when you think about it. You had the Space Blacks (klingons) and the Space Asians (vulcans) and the Space Jews (ferengi) and the Space Nazis (romulans) who were all total stereotypes generally speaking, and any time one was a main character a significant part of their character arc would be them working to overcome their worst racial tendencies and conform to decent human culture. Either that or they were already essentially human, just in funny makeup.

But OTOH you had movies where the devil white man goes on a journey of self reflection to overcome his inexplicable bigotry against the race that tried to conquer his species, killed many of his friends and family, constantly try to kill him, and want him executed for war crimes. Then there's the more hamfisted stuff like the half-black, half-white aliens or the 2 (at least) TNG episodes about the dangers of drug abuse or the one where Wesley sacrifices his career to protect the Space Indians from the Space Conquistadors. And then there's Tom Paris, the token Fucking White Male.

(Oh wait, those weren't Space Indians, they were actual literal Indians. Though they were in space...)

Re: I've got a boner

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been 4 hours, you probably should and also stop with the pills.

Re:"can diagnose up to 34 medical conditions"

[Anonymous Coward]

The racist Vulcan captain was on DS9. "Take Me Out to the Holosuite"

An unrelated episode of DS9 was the only instance in the franchise when the word "n-gger" was uttered on screen. "Far Beyond the Stars"

Re:"can diagnose up to 34 medical conditions"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nagger?

Now that you mention her, yes, Lwaxana Troi appeared in a handful of DS9 episodes.

True til scams

[Actually, I do RTFA]

That was true until 2012. Then, there was this giant scam caused the FDA to start getting involved in software startup diagnostics.

Re:what does Trek tricorder measure?

[freeze128]

Every geek knows that a Star Trek Tricorder measures Geological, Meteorological, and Biological parameters. These are most useful on away missions.

I had a tricorder 20 years ago

[Baron_Yam]

Vital Technologies of Bolton, Ontario, Canada went out of business trying to market their educational model, which had pressure, temperature, EM, and colour sensors.

In the lab, they were working on assembling one that could listen to your heartbeat and extract useful data from your body's electrical fields from a distance of a few feet.

I dont remember a tricorder doing this

[JustNiz]

Scanning a planets atmosphere for breathability and detecting life signs? yes, but not whether someone was sick or not.

That was actually the job of the little spinning doohicky that Dr. McCoy had.

Re:I dont remember a tricorder doing this

[MobyDisk]

The spinning doohickey connected to the main tricorder part. That was the biggest difference between the medical tricorder and the science tricorder.

Re:I dont remember a tricorder doing this

[JustNiz]

Ahh...thanks

Re:"can diagnose up to 34 medical conditions"

[Sad Loser]

IAAD and I work in this area.
ISO 13485 has very specific standards for any medical device that touches patients.
To get an ISO 13485 + ISO 27001 (data security) rated product with software is going to take $500k to get to the stage where you can pilot and go for second round funding.

There are all sorts of really good sounding projects out there
http://www.oxehealth.com/
http://intelligentultrasound.c...

I have found that it is easy to show that a product works in optimum conditions e.g. with people who will stay still and not move about, but put a lot of these technologies into real life situations and the data they output is landfill quality.

This is one of the really annoying things - we have politicians who think that Joe average is going to upload the data from their heart monitor and we are going to stop him going to the Emergency Department.
The diagnosis I make is only as good as the data I base that on. That is why Apple has pulled all its apps with medical claims. The consequences of misdiagnosis due to poor data mean a PR disaster on the scale of Volkswagen diesels.

I am not saying that some of this stuff is impossible, but don't expect too much too soon, and if the device and software are not certified, I cannot use them in my practice so they are just shiny paperweights.

Re:"can diagnose up to 34 medical conditions"

[FrankHaynes]

Down-voted for not concluding with,

"I'm a doctor, not a computer programmer!!"