BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Why Computers Will Eradicate Blood Borne Diseases

Following
This article is more than 8 years old.

If, as Swift said, vision is the art of seeing what others don’t, the computers are winning. As computers get more human-like, technologists are teaching computers to see and understand the world around them.

The field of computer vision — literally, sensors and computers that can process, analyze, and understand images — is massively driving the major advances made in the autonomous vehicle industry over the past few years. And that makes sense: to relinquish control over our cars and let them drive themselves, our rides must be able to see the world around them and navigate accordingly. Computer vision enables cars to do just that and is the technology behind Israeli firm, Mobileye’s massive billion dollar IPO in 2014.

But computer vision doesn’t start and end with cars. Think of the potential: much of the actions we take during our daily lives can truly be automated. Driving, scanning our bills, making business appointments, doctor exams: Much of this can be replaced — or at least, majorly assisted -- by computers. 

Computer vision meets healthcare

Israeli tech startup, SightDX uses computer vision to scan blood samples in search for diseases of the blood and it does so better, faster, and cheaper than humans can. The startup was founded by a multi-disciplinary team of biologists, engineers, and software programmers that merged their talents in disease detection and vision analysis to create a versatile platform capable of multi disease detection.

"Creating a dynamic computer vision platform for blood diagnostics required us to merge expertise from numerous scientific and engineering disciplines. Our successful trials and commercialization of the malaria device demonstrates the proof of principle for the technology and paves the way for additional vision-based diagnostic applications on our platform." -- Yossi Pollak, CEO of SightDX

Applying computer vision to healthcare, SightDX has engineered a low cost scanning device, capable of providing rapid, high-quality images using advanced scanning technologies. These images are then processed by a machine learning algorithm which detects the presence of blood abnormalities based on proprietary fluorescent stains and advanced software.

SightDX’s first application is for malaria testing. 500 million tests are done annually for the blood-borne disease, yet it still kills about 600,000 people each year. From my discussions with the management, it appears that the Israeli startup is appealing to both high and low end pathology labs as the technology provides greater accuracy and ease of use than today’s standard malaria diagnostic.

Marketing to the emerging market

SightDX has locked its first sights on India and Africa to distribute its technology. After recently releasing the current version of its technology, the firm has sold tens of devices so far in Africa. The firm’s African distributor is projecting sales of another 30-40 devices for the rest of 2015. The company has booked additional influential customers in Africa and is preparing to launch into India with a recently-inked sales agreement with a significant pathology lab.

In malaria endemic countries, the reliability of microscope diagnosis is very low and requires electricity and highly-skilled technicians. Our instrument is very simple to operate, produces results quickly, and can be operated in the field. -- Professor Eli Schwartz, SightDX's Chief Medical Advisor and President of the Israeli Society for Parasitology, Protozoology, and Tropical Diseases

According to management, the firm has completed several trials with its malaria detection machine, showing superior results to currently marketed tests. These results have been written up into two papers, submitted for publication, and are currently under review. The submitted articles are derived from trials performed at the National Institute of Malaria India (NIMR), City Hospital Mangalore India, and Lancet Laboratories Johannesburg SA -- all purportedly showing that performance is superior to current standard diagnostics.

SightDX sets sights on complete blood count (CBC) tests

In parallel to malaria detection Sight is looking to expand into the blood diagnostic market by providing a vision-based technology for the complete blood count (CBC) test. This application will be performed simultaneously with the malaria test and will also be available in a stand-alone application designed for point of care.

SightDX is a company I know well — my firm, OurCrowd, and our community of global online members, invested in it, as did venture firm, Clal Bio and Innovation Endeavors (Google chairman, Eric Schmidt’s investment arm), as part of a $6 million Series B round.