Healthcare AI Guy Weekly Newsletter | 8/22

Our Picks ✨

Highlights if you’ve only got 2 minutes…

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Stroke patient helped to walk with AI-powered trousers

A stroke patient in the UK is walking again thanks to "smart trousers" controlled by AI. The tech stimulates her paralyzed leg to match her healthy leg's movements.

The "NeuroSkin" trousers have electrodes sending AI-modulated pulses, recreating the patient's natural movement by mirroring her healthy leg. The tech currently costs $5,500 a month to lease but may become more accessible in the future.

Mobility tech marks yet another milestone in a growing list of AI-powered medical advances. So far this year, AI helped a quadriplegic move his arms again, improved breast cancer detection by 20%, and detected signs of Parkinson’s 15 years before other symptoms. Algorithms combined with prosthetics and recovery tools could restore capabilities for the millions with disabilities — pretty exciting stuff! (link)

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Viome Life Sciences raises $86.5M and partners with CVS

At-home AI-powered diagnostics startup Viome Life Sciences based in Bellevue, WA raised $86.5M in an oversubscribed series C funding round and will roll out its gut microbiome testing kit into 200 CVS stores. Viome has raised $175 million to date from Khosla Ventures and others.

Launched in 2016, Viome developed diagnostic tests for gut and oral health as well as what it calls "full body health." The company's test kits analyze the microbial composition of saliva, blood and stool samples collected at home and then provide food and supplement recommendations.

The company aims to use AI, insights from consumer RNA and understanding of gene expression and the power of microbiome health to continue the consumerization of healthcare. Combining a couple of megatrends here — gut health, home health, and AI... (link)

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Google testing AI coach

Google DeepMind has been working with AI to perform at least 21 different types of personal and professional tasks, including tools to give users life advice, ideas, planning instructions and tutoring tips.

NYTimes reported that Google’s new project indicates “the urgency of Google’s effort to propel itself to the front of the AI pack and signaled its increasing willingness to trust AI systems with sensitive tasks.” In a presentation shown to executives last December, Google’s AI safety experts warned that users could experience “diminished health and well-being” and a “loss of agency” if they took life advice from AI — so a lot of testing and review is still needed.

With great power comes great responsibility. These tools will help us be more productive and expand our capability set but we need to be careful not to become over-reliant on AI. At least not at this stage. (link w/out paywall)

Miscellaneous 🔍

News, podcasts, blogs, tweets, resources, etc…

• How machine learning models can amplify inequities in medical diagnosis and treatment (link)

• The scientist behind IBM Watson raised $60M for his AI startup (link)

• Google's ‘Search Generative Experience’ adds AI-powered summaries and definitions to articles (link)

• The intersection of AI and ADHD (link)

• Study: Using AI to integrate SDOH data can improve post-acute recovery (link)

• Google expands AI tech into iCAD’s mammography suite (link)

• What are the economics of AI? (link)

• Microsoft AI compares AI to a “tidal wave” (link)

Deal Desk 💸 

Spotlight on latest capital raises, M&A and investments…

📈 Genesis Therapeutics: an AI-powered drug discovery platform Genesis Therapeutics raised $200M in Series B funding. a16z led the round and was joined by new and existing investors. (link)

📈 Viome Life Sciences: a microbiome startup based in Bellevue, WA raised $86.5M in Series C funding. Khosla Ventures and Bold Capital led the round. (link)

📈 Definitive Healthcare + Populi: Definitive Healthcare, a commercial intelligence company, bought data analytics startup Populi for $52M. The move broadens DH’s suite of healthcare commercial intelligence solutions with new data, analytics, and visualization tools tailor-built for the provider market. (link)

📈 Mendaera: a healthcare robotics startup based in San Mateo, CA raised $24M in Series A funding. Lux Capital led the round and was joined by Founders Fund, Operator Partners, Allen & Co., and others. (link)

Tool Box 🧰

Latest on business, consumer, and clinical healthcare AI tools and partnerships…

🔧 Abridge + Epic: AI-enabled documentation startup Abridge will integrate with Epic as part of the EHR vendor’s latest programs for third-party developers. (link)

🔧 John Hopkins: Engineers and cancer researchers from Johns Hopkins have developed a deep-learning technology called BigMHC that accurately predicts protein fragments linked to cancer, potentially aiding in the development of personalized cancer therapies and immunotherapies. (link)

🔧 University of Waterloo: University of Waterloo researchers have developed a new explainable AI model that aims to reduce bias and enhance trust and accuracy in machine learning-generated decision-making and knowledge organization, particularly in the medical field. (link)

🔧 MIT: MIT researchers have developed a deep learning model capable of motion correction in brain MRI scans, which could help reduce image artifacts and improve diagnoses. (link)

AI Images of the Week 📸

Funny memes and pics from around the web…