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Politico

MIT researchers have found that “when an AI tool for radiologists produced a wrong answer, doctors were more likely to come to the wrong conclusion in their diagnoses,” report Daniel Payne, Carmen Paun, Ruth Reader and Erin Schumaker for Politico. “The study explored the findings of 140 radiologists using AI to make diagnoses based on chest X-rays,” they write. “How AI affected care wasn’t dependent on the doctors’ levels of experience, specialty or performance. And lower-performing radiologists didn’t benefit more from AI assistance than their peers.”

Fast Company

Writing for Fast Company, Senior Lecturer Guadalupe Hayes-Mota '08, SM '16, MBA '16 shares methods to address the influence of AI in healthcare. “Despite these advances [of AI in healthcare], the full spectrum of AI’s potential remains largely untapped,” explains Hayes-Mota. “Systemic hurdles such as data privacy concerns, the absence of standardized data protocols, regulatory complexities, and ethical dilemmas are compounded by an inherent resistance to change within the healthcare profession. These barriers underscore the urgent need for transformative action from all stakeholders to fully harness AI’s capabilities.”

CNBC

MIT Innovation Fellow Brian Deese speaks with CNBC about how the new class of weight loss drugs will impact American taxes and the federal deficit. “These drugs could touch tens of millions of Americans, that’s the good news,” says Deese. “They have the potential to reduce obesity, address diabetes and reduce the health care costs associated with that. The problem is that the scale and the cost of these drugs is so large, that it could add enormously to the federal budget.”

Bloomberg

Wardah Inam SM '12, PhD '16 founded Overjet, an AI platform that helps dentists “diagnose diseases from scans and other data,” reports Saritha Rai for Bloomberg. “Dentistry was more art than science, and I wanted to bring technology and AI to help dentists make objective decisions,” says Inam. “We began building and then improving our AI systems with tens of millions of pieces of data, including X-rays, historical information, dentist notes, and periodontal charts.”

New York Times

Prof. Jonathan Gruber, MIT Innovation Fellow Brian Deese and Stanford doctoral student Ryan Cummings write for The New York Times about the health benefits of new weight-loss drugs and the risk they pose to American taxpayers. “The magnitude of potential benefit and potential cost — roughly $15,000 per year per person — posed by these drugs suggests that policymakers may have no alternative but to step in and bring their costs in line with their social benefits,” they write. “If policymakers succeed in doing so, we could build a model for drug price negotiation that enables an extraordinary medical breakthrough to improve both our health and our fiscal position.”

WCVB

BioBot - a public health research, data and analytics firm co-founded by Mariana Matus PhD '18 and Newsha Ghaeli PhD '17 - is using wastewater testing to provide insights into growing infection rates and diseases across the country, reports Soledad O’Brien for WCVB-TV.

New York Times

Research scientist Beth Pollack speaks with the New York Times’ Pam Belluck about her work studying the mechanisms of long Covid-19 and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). “Experts said the study, which is the N.I.H’s first detailed look at ME/CFS, should be considered only one step in understanding the condition, its severity and potential remedies,” explains Belluck. “We must advance the field towards research on treatment,” says Pollack.

Politico

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found that while AI systems could help doctors come to the right diagnosis more often, the diagnostic gains aren’t always distributed evenly, with more improvements tied to patients with lighter skin, report Daniel Payne, Erin Schumaker, and Ruth Reader for Politico. “AI could be a powerful tool to improve care and potentially offer providers a check on their blindspots," they write. "But that doesn’t mean AI will reduce bias. In fact, the study suggests, AI could cause greater disparities in care.”

The Washington Post

Alicia Chong Rodriguez SM ’17, SM ’18 founded Bloomer Tech, a health tech startup that aims to improve health care diagnostics for women using medical-grade data to develop new therapies and care models, reports Carol Eisenberg for The Washington Post. Rodriguez and her colleagues "developed, patented and tested flexible washable circuits to turn articles of clothing into devices that can relay reams of information to the wearer’s smartphone,” writes Eisenberg.

Wired

Prof. Canan Dagdeviren and her team have developed a wearable ultrasound patch that can be used to screen for breast cancer at home, reports Grace Browne for Wired. “Dagdeviren wants to give people the opportunity to know what’s happening inside their bodies every day, the same way we check the weather forecast,” writes Browne.

HealthDay News

A new analysis from MIT researchers has found that preventative screenings such as a colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy can reduce cancer rates more than previous analyses suggested, reports Ernie Mundell for HealthDay. “Prior colon cancer screening studies found that regular colonoscopy/sigmoidoscopy reduced that rate by 25% -- to 0.75%,” explains Mundell. “But the new analysis took into account the number of participants in a colon cancer screening trial who decided, for whatever reason, to skip screening. When these "non-adherent" folks were eliminated from statistical calculations, the actual percentage of people who went on to develop colon cancer over a 10-year span fell to just 0.5%.”

Fast Company

Writing for Fast Company, Lecturer Guadalupe Hayes-Mota '08, SM '16, MBA '16 shares three strategies that are reshaping access to healthcare and medicine, especially in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). “Integrating local production enhancement, strategic partnership and pooled purchasing power represents a new dawn in global health care,” writes Hayes-Mota. “These innovative approaches are pivotal in making quality medicine and healthcare accessible to all, particularly LMICs.”

Forbes

Forbes contributor William Haseltine spotlights how MIT researchers developed a biosensor ingestible capsule that can gather and transmit information on a patient’s condition to a physician. Haseltine notes that “aside from respiratory and heart rate monitoring, future applications for the pill could come from alterations in its design, leading to other avenues of health monitoring. These may include digestive health, blood sugar monitoring and cancer cell detection.” 

National Academy of Engineering

Lecturer Guadalupe Hayes-Mota '08, SM '16, MBA '16 writes for the National Academy of Engineering to discuss the importance of a “well-functioning healthcare supply chain.” “A connected supply chain represents a paradigm shift, offering the potential to revolutionize how drugs are developed, produced, and delivered to patients,” writes Hayes-Mota. “Embracing this approach can enhance drug delivery efficiency, ensure patient satisfaction, and ultimately contribute to a healthier and more prosperous global community.”

Forbes

Forbes contributor William Haseltine spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a flexible ultrasound patch that can be used to help estimate bladder volume. “The applications for long-term therapeutic and regenerative medicine for the ultrasound patch are innumerable, only to be limited by the imagination of those implementing their use,” writes Haseltine. “Among the most forthcoming are situations where someone may be unable to visit their physician for a medically-administered ultrasound.”