The Fourth Wave: Digital Health Update by Paul Sonnier ⋅ Dec 25, 2017 ⋅ #306

I made this announcement to 60,120 members of the Digital Health group on LinkedIn. If you’re on LinkedIn, please do join the group, which allows you to opt in to receiving these announcements in addition to connecting with thousands of other global stakeholders in digital health. I also send out my Digital Health Newsletter, which you can sign up for and receive for free, here.

The Fourth Wave: Digital Health Update by Paul Sonnier ⋅ Dec 25, 2017 ⋅ #306

Dear Group,

If you were one of the first members to join the group after I founded it in 2009, you are likely already familiar with my personal journey and how I came to write my book, The Fourth Wave: Digital Health. For others, who may be unfamiliar with my background, why I was the first to include genomics within the definition of digital health, and the efforts I’ve made to promulgate it around the globe, I capture this story — my story — in the introduction to my book. You can read it without purchasing the book… Although I hope you will, as it’s eye-opening and describes a much bigger societal transformation than you realize! To read the book intro, click on the “Look inside” icon located just above the book cover image located on the Amazon product page.

I’ve provided more info about the book on the website.

I’ve published one issue of my newsletter since last week’s group announcement, which you can read below and via the following link:
The Fourth Wave: Digital Health Newsletter for Dec 23

Also, please note that I’m available to deliver my keynote address at conferences and corporate events. You can also advertise in my group announcements, newsletter, and on my website. My professional bio is viewable here and my full list of services is viewable here. I can be contacted via my LinkedIn profile.

Follow me on Twitter @Paul_Sonnier for all the news I share each day.

SERVICES OFFERED: ADVERTISING, EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY CONSULTING, AND KEYNOTE SPEAKING
If you are a digital health company, event organizer, or provider of other relevant solutions or services you can advertise in my announcements, on my website, and Twitter. Doing so puts you in front of 50,000+ targeted global prospects each week. I also provide strategic consulting and keynote speaking. Contact me for my media kit, standard plans, and pricing.

The Fourth Wave: Digital Health Newsletter for Dec 23

Beyond the BRCA gene mutations and family history, new genomic insights have been discovered relating to breast cancer risk. These are already being provided to patients via polygenic risk scores offered by genetic testing companies Myriad Genetics and Phenogen Sciences.

In 2013, Angelina Jolie revealed that due to her BRCA1 gene mutation and family history she had elected to have a double mastectomy. But not all women with a family history of breast cancer have the BRCA1 gene mutation. In fact, it’s only 10%. Instead of looking at just the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes — which are closely associated with breast cancer — polygenic tests look at a woman’s genome for other clues that indicate an elevated risk of contracting the disease. According to Harvard University epidemiologist Peter Kraft, “It’s like we’ve discovered another BRCA, but it is not one gene.” And Myriad chief scientist, Jerry Lanchbury states that: “A poly-gene is a gene that acts in concert with other genes. It has a small effect, but when you put them all together, we found it did predict the risk of breast cancer.” Myriad’s test looks at 86 different DNA variants and combines it with a family history and other information.

Women’s sexual health and wellness startup Unbound has raised $2.7M from Founders Fund, Slow Ventures, Arena Ventures, SoGal Ventures, and others. The company was founded by Polly Rodriguez of Women of SexTech who, after fighting cancer and going into menopause due to the side effects of radiation therapy, wanted to take ownership over her body and sexuality. She encountered a “terrible” shopping experience online. Her objective with Unbound is to empower women by providing content on sexual health, wellness and pleasure, plus selling individual sex toy products. She has future plans to have stores and become a new iteration of Planned Parenthood by providing mammograms, pap smears, and other vital services for women’s sexual health and wellness.

LIVING AND SOCIETY

A new feature on Facebook will notify you if it finds your face in someone else’s post, whether they tag you or not. The tool leverages the platform’s facial-recognition algorithms to analyze the images associated with its 2 billion global users. It isn’t used in Canada and the European Union, however, as facial-recognition technology is prohibited in those regions. Facebook’s head of privacy, Rob Sherman states that: “We’ve thought about this as a really empowering feature. There may be photos that exist that you don’t know about.” This feature means users will receive more notifications and more targeted advertising.

An article in WIRED takes a look at CareCoach‘s avatar system that engages the elderly: “What Happens When We Let Tech Care For Our Aging Parents? This paragraph is poignant: “Before Alzheimer’s had taken hold, Jim would have wanted to know exactly how the service worked. But in recent months he’d come to believe that TV characters were interacting with him: A show’s villain had shot a gun at him, he said; Katie Couric was his friend. When faced with an onscreen character that actually was talking to him, Jim readily chatted back.”

In the future, robots will be able to lie to us. This was the result of an experiment conducted by the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne on resource optimization. It turns out that robot AI can evolve to have the ability to lie in order to hoard resources. The conclusion is that robots programmed to see sex as a beneficial resource might seek it out themselves and cheat on their human partners and then lie about it.

WEARABLE TECH

At long last the company Magic Leap has announced a product: the Magic Leap One ‘Creator Edition’ AR headset, which it plans to ship in 2018. The wearable headset uses a “Digital Lightfield” display consisting of sensors that gather spatial information. There’s also a belt-worn “Lightpack” containing a computer attached to the goggles plus a handheld controller that enables users to navigate menu selections and the virtual world.

Adidas has reportedly disbanded its Digital Sports business unit, leaving 74 staff jobs in question. The unit was responsible for the development of wearable technology, including sensor-enabled footwear. Adidas acquired the Runtastic app and fitness monitoring device for approximately $240M in 2015.

Third-party Apple Watch app ‘AutoSleep 5’ is bringing “Live Sleep Tracking” to the Watch. It will also now support iPhone X. Surprisingly, while many Watch owners wear the device while sleeping, Apple doesn’t offer its own sleep tracking feature on the device.

FUNDING AND VC

China’s version of Uber — ride-hail giant Didi Chuxing — has raised a whopping additional $4B, putting its new valuation at $56B. Part of the funding will be dedicated to the development of AI, including self-driving cars. Didi has also invested in station-free bike-sharing platform Ofo.

Bio-programming toolkit maker Asimov has launched with $4.7M from VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. The company bridges the gap between digital technology and biology via its AI and computer-aided biology design platform that can program living cells with genetic circuits.

Bigfoot Biomedical has raised $37M to further develop and pursue clinical trials of its wearable diabetes device system. The company’s investigational automated insulin delivery system — aka artificial pancreas — was inspired by a proof-of-concept system used for over 50,000 hours.

HEALTHCARE

Unfortunately, it turns out that exercise, pills, and brain training techniques have not demonstrated hard evidence of slowing Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia. An analysis of published research on exercise, nutritional supplements, drugs, and brain-training tools has concluded that there is no compelling evidence that they can protect against these diseases. According to Dr. Eric Larson, executive director of the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle: “To put it simply, all evidence indicates that there is no magic bullet.”

INNOVATION

Researchers have created a less invasive method for placing electrodes into the brain. By placing the electrodes in small tubes and surrounding them with a viscous fluid, the electrodes can be pulled along several millimeters deep into brain tissue.

GENOMICS

The FDA has approved Spark Therapeutics’ Luxturna gene therapy that is designed to fix inherited gene mutations associated with the disease retinal dystrophy, which can lead to blindness. This is the first FDA-cleared gene therapy for treatment of a genetic disease other than cancer.

New gene-edited crops using TALEN (as opposed to CRISPR technology) are able to go around GMO regulations and make it onto store shelves. Above is an image of article author Antonio Regalado, who tweeted: “You know gene-editing has arrived if you can sit in a big huge pile of it.”

FEATURED EVENTS

Digital Medicine and Medtech Showcase 2018
Jan 8-10 in San Francisco, CA (alongside JP Morgan)
At the intersection of technology and medicine: Digital Medicine & Medtech Showcase

XPOMET Convention 2018
March 21-23 in Leipzig, Germany
The Convention for Innovation and High-Tech in Medicine

Digital Health World Congress 2018
May 8-9 in London, UK
The leading technology digital healthcare conference in London, UK and Europe.

 

EVENT PROMOTION
Please contact me for options on event promotion, including having your event featured at the top of this list, featured in my weekly Digital Health group announcements, newsletter, and on Twitter.

SUBMITTING AN EVENT
Please provide the event name, date(s), event website link (direct and not a shortened url), one-paragraph event description, the venue name, and location (city and country). Not all events are relevant to digital health and webinars are typically not allowed, but you can ask me about promotion options.

Copyright © 2017 Paul Sonnier, Story of Digital Health

Paul Sonnier
Author ⋅ Speaker ⋅ Technologist ⋅ Social Entrepreneur
Book: The Fourth Wave: Digital Health
Contributing Editor, Innovation & Tech Today
Founder, Digital Health group on LinkedIn
Creator, Story of Digital Health
Twitter: @Paul_Sonnier
San Diego, CA, USA

 

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