Researchers at MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have published a paper showcasing the development of OncoNPC, an artificial intelligence model that can predict where a patient’s cancer came from in their body, reports Tony Ho Tran for The Daily Beast. This information “can help determine more effective treatment decisions for patients and caregivers,” writes Tran.
Forbes reporter John C. Goodman spotlights “We’ve Got You Covered,” a new book co-authored by Prof. Amy Finkelstein and Stanford economist Liran Einav, which explores the idea of offering universal health insurance coverage with no increase in government spending. “An important argument made by Finkelstein and Einav is that Americans are paying about twice as much as we really need to pay for medically necessary health care,” writes Goodman. “So, if we gave the government’s share to people directly, they would be able to buy essential coverage with that money alone."
Prof. Lonnie Petersen speaks with Boston Globe reporter Kay Lazar about the need to prepare doctors to provide medical care in space. “As we have more commercial space flight, we will have a different composition of crew members, we will see more preexisting conditions, the age range will expand, and obviously the way we do medicine is evolving,” Petersen said.
Prof. Canan Dagdeviren and colleagues at MIT have developed a wearable sensor that could help more easily detect breast cancer. “Dr. Dagdeviren hopes the device will allow for more frequent screening of women who are at high risk of developing breast cancer, such as those who had inherited the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, or people who have had cancer previously,” writes Sarah Knapton for The Telegraph.
Prof. Amy Finkelstein speaks with Marketplace’s David Brancaccio about her new book “We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care,” which outlines a way to rethink health care in the U.S. “What every other high-income country does is have universal basic coverage with the ability to buy additional supplemental coverage for people who can afford and want more than that basic coverage,” explains Finkelstein. “And that’s what we need to do.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a wearable ultrasound patch that could be used to allow women to monitor themselves for early signs of breast cancer, reports Amy Norton for HealthDay. “The hope is to one day use such portable technology to help diagnose and monitor a range of diseases and injuries – in a way that’s more accessible and cheaper than using traditional scanners housed at medical facilities,” explains Norton.
Researchers at MIT have developed a “flexible patch that can take ultrasound images comparable to those done by medical centers, but can fit into a bra,” reports Sara Kiley Watson for Popular Science. “The researchers tested their device on a 71-year-old subject with a history of breast cysts, and were able to detect cysts as small as 0.3 centimeters in diameter up to 8 centimeters deep in the tissue, all while maintaining a resolution similar to traditional ultrasounds,” writes Kiley Watson.
MIT researchers have designed a wearable ultrasound device that attaches to a bra and could be used to detect early-stage breast tumors, reports Lizzy Lawrence for STAT. “I’m hoping to really make it real, and to touch people’s lives,” says Prof. Canan Dagdeviren. “I want to see the impact of my technology not only in the lab, but on society.”
Writing for The Washington Post, research affiliate Bina Venkataraman emphasizes that “if biomedical breakthroughs are to benefit the millions of children afflicted with rare diseases, genetic testing of babies needs to expand.” Venkataraman adds: “By screening newborn genomes for currently known genetic diseases, patients and scientists could gain insights that lead to the treatment and prevention of thousands of illnesses that currently lack cures.”
Researchers at MIT have developed a mobile vaccine printer capable of printing a vaccine onto a patch of microneedles that can be absorbed into the skin without injection, reports Sandra Tsing for NPR. “These printed vaccines could be used in areas that are unable to refrigerate traditional vaccines,” explains Tsing.
Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, writes for Forbes about Prof. Dina Katabi’s work using insights from wireless systems to help glean information about patient health. “Incorporating continuous time data collection in healthcare using ambient WiFi detectable by machine learning promises an era where early and accurate diagnosis becomes the norm rather than the exception,” writes Rus.
Researchers from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have developed “Sybil,” an AI tool that can detect the risk of a patient developing lung cancer within six years, reports Mary Kekatos for ABC News. “Sybil was trained on low-dose chest computer tomography scans, which is recommended for those between ages 50 and 80 who either have a significant history of smoking or currently smoke,” explains Kekatos.
In an article for Forbes, research affiliate John Werner spotlights Prof. Dina Katabi and her work showcasing how AI can boost the capabilities of clinical data. “We are going to collect data, clinical data from patients continuously in their homes, track the symptoms, the evolution of those symptoms, and process this data with machine learning so that we can get insights before problems occur,” says Katabi.
Michael Goldberg PhD '08 founded Surge Therapeutics, a company developing a hydrogel immunotherapy treatment aimed at reducing the risk of surgically-removed cancers returning, reports India Rice for Forbes. “Broadly speaking, immunotherapy is a range of cancer treatments that aim to strengthen the immune system’s ability to fight cancer,” explains Rice. “But what makes Surge’s solution different is that it’s applied during surgery as opposed to other immunotherapies that are delivered weeks before or weeks after surgery.”
Prof. Regina Barzilay speaks with Nicole Estephan of WCVB-TV’s Chronicle about her work developing new AI systems that could be used to help diagnose breast and lung cancer before the cancers are detectable to the human eye.