Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology

A group of Northern Virginia high school students is hoping to make it a little easier for vulnerable individuals to connect with clinical trials that might benefit them – with the help of an app they've been developing over the course of nearly two years. Ethan Ocasio, Shreeja Kikkisetti and Neeyanth Kopparapu created the Clinical Trial Selector tool in the summer of 2019, as part of the AI Tech Sprint run by the Department of Veterans Affairs' National Artificial Intelligence Institute. "The problem we're trying to solve came from patients not being able to find trials they're eligible for, and experimenters unable to find people to participate," said Kikkisetti. "We wanted to bridge" the gap, she continued. Kikkisetti, a senior at Chantilly High School, is the chief financial officer of the Girls Computing League, a group aimed at making technology education accessible to all students, particularly students of color and those with low incomes. Kopparapu – now a freshman at Harvard – is GCL's cofounder and chief information officer, while Ocasio is the chief technology officer. Nikhil Pesaladinne, a sophomore at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, is the codirector of workshops. He joined the Clinical Trial Selector tool team in 2020. Using the VA Health and CMS Blue Button APIs, the Clinical Trial Selector app relies on natural language processing to extract data from an individual's health records, which can then be matched with a list of clinical trials populated by the National Cancer Institute and ClinicalTrials.gov. "It pulls those trials and displays each trial by condition to the patient," explained Pesaladinne. The patient can then consult with their doctor about possible participation in the trials. As the only students at the AI Tech Sprint, the Girls Computing League team received an honorable mention for their work, with their app featured at the Office of National Coordinator for Health IT's conference in December 2020. "We got the idea for the CTS, because the VA Health API and the CMS Blue Button API were resources that were new to us. We wanted to use resources that we had to make something new and impactful," said Ocasio in a November 2020 write-up about the Tech Sprint. In 2018, Justin Aronson, then age 16, used publicly available data to build a precision medicine analytics website. This further highlights the potential for innovation fueled by data democratization. Since the sprint, the app has been granted production data access from the VA and CMS, meaning it is now live for users. The next challenge, said the team, will be finding an organization to host the app full-time. The students received credits from Amazon Web Services to enable development and testing, but scaling up will "require consistent funding, especially with how many service-connected veterans there are," said Ocasio. The team says the feedback from users has been positive so far. "It's been fun. I've learned a lot," said Ocasio. "There's a whole aspect of not just programming the app, but also the whole business application of it – selling ourselves to organizations, telling them why this app has value, where we come from, what our aspirations are." "It's more than just coding," Kikkisetti added. "Sharing it with others and voicing what we did was most important." "It's exciting to see them going from an AI tech sprint to using production-level data," said Dr. Gil Alterovitz, the VA's director of artificial intelligence. "So, now it is something that empowers and can be used by 9 million-plus veterans, as well as CMS beneficiaries." "We're happy our app is live, and we still have a lot more to go," said Kikkisetti. .jumbotron{ background-image: url(""); background-size: cover; color: white; } .jumbotron h2{ color: white; } The Diverse Roles of AI & ML Machine learning applications are proliferating and improving, and this month we'll explore the many ways they're being put to work. Kat Jercich is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.

By Mark Terry , BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff If there’s one reason to view biotech as the new center for the tech industry boom, it may be the number of 20-somethings founding biotech startups. Forbes came out with its Forbes 30 Under 30, looking at companies founded by 20-something entrepreneurs. Here’s a look at the top 11 who are involved in life science companies. Matthew De Silva, 29 Founder, Notable Labs Based in San Francisco, Calif., Notable Labs uses an automated system to screen tumor samples for FDA -approved drugs that have published anti-cancer effects, test drug combinations against the tumor and provide physicians with a report. De Silva was a hedge fund manager with Thiel Capital . In the fall of 2013, his father was diagnosed with brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme. He did some research and teamed up with then pre-med student Pete Quinzio to found the Y Combinator -backed Notable Labs. Riley Ennis, 23 and Gabriel Otte, 29 Cofounders, Freenome Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., Freenome utilizes a liquid biopsy diagnosis platform that detects the cell-free DNA sequencing of cancer. It received $5.5 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz , with participation from Founders Fund , Data Collective , and Third Kind Venture Capital . David Hysong, 29 Founder, Shepherd Therapeutics As Forbes writes, “By age 27, David Hysong had investigated the sexual enslavement of children in Cambodia and trained as a Navy SEAL. Then he found out he had a rare, untreatable, and lethal form of head-and-neck cancer. He’s founded a company, Shepherd Bio, to try and find treatments for rare cancers like his.” Shepherd is located in Allston, Mass. and Nasvhille, Tenn. Hysong partnered with Gene Williams , a former Genzyme senior vice president, to found the company. The focus is specifically on rare cancers, although it’s not entirely clear what the company is doing. Its website says it has an “innovative business model which combines a diversified and platform-agnostic portfolio, strong relationships with disease-specific research foundations, and the ability to leverage top industry talent and expertise using a virtual model.” Vivek Kopparthi, 27 Cofounder, NeoLight Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., NeoLight has developed a phototherapy device for portable use at home, primarily for the treatment of newborn jaundice. It is also working on another to treat infant hypothermia. Kopparthi has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in management. His bio indicates he has held “leadership roles in organizations with 100+ employees, advised tech start-ups, and has consulted with major corporations.” Jessica Traver, 25 and Nicole Moskowitz, 26 Cofounders, IntuiTap Medical With offices in Houston, Texas and Chicago, Ill., IntuiTap developed a medical device for spinal punctures that integrates imaging of the spine with needle guidance and analytics. Moskowitz, the company’s cofounder and chief technical officer, has a background in biomedical engineering, physics, and art from Columbia University . Traver, the company’s chief executive officer, was trained in mechanical engineering at Purdue University , with a strong foundation in product development and design. Ashwin Pushpala, 28 Founder, Sano Based in San Francisco, Calif., Sano merges a blood glucose monitor with a Fitbit approach. The company has raised $18.75 million to develop a wearable monitor that assesses blood sugar levels. It involves a minimally invasive wearable patch . It measures interstitial fluid in the outer layer of the skin and provides real-time, continuous glucose monitoring that it sends to a mobile app. Rohan Suri, 17 Founder, Averia Health Solutions Suri ’s invention is an app that can diagnose concussions. It involves a smartphone app, and a specially designed headset. Suri was a student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, when he and his invention were selected from almost 100 entries at the innovation symposium at Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC. The previous year Suri invented a computational model for understanding the Ebola outbreak and ways to allocate resources. Austin Walker, 28 Cofounder, Innovein Innovein is developing a prosthetic valve to treat patients with blood flow problems related to malfunctioning valves in their veins. The device and procedure has been validated in animal trials and in laboratories and is expected to start human trials next year. Tim Wang, 28 Cofounder, KSQ Therapeutics Located in Cambridge, Mass., KSQ Therapeutics uses CRISPR gene-editing technology to develop new drugs, targeting cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. The company is backed by Flagship Ventures and Polaris Partners .