Health sciences and technology

Time reporter Alice Park spotlights how MIT startup BioBot is sampling and analyzing sewage for communities across the U.S. to help track the spread of Covid-19. “Over the course of this pandemic, the entire world has seen how valuable wastewater epidemiology is as a tool,” says Newsha Ghaeli, president and co-founder of Biobot. “Our long-term vision is that wastewater epidemiology becomes a permanent part of the infrastructure embedded on top of sewage systems across the country and around the world.”

A new study by researchers from MIT and BU finds that the “thin gold leaf material used to decorate picture frames or lamp bases could also be used to detect viral infections,” writes Eva Amsen for Forbes. The use of an accessible material like gold leaf means a diagnostic device made from the material “could be used in doctors’ offices or field clinics anywhere in the world, no matter how far they are from a hospital.”

In an article for Wired, Prof. Amy Moran-Thomas writes about racial bias in pulse oximeters, noting that oximeters designed to work equitably existed in the 70s. “As part of AI’s growing role in health care, a wide range of noninvasive sensors are being developed with the pulse oximeter as their model,” writes Moran-Thomas. “Without care, a coming generation of optical color sensors could easily reproduce the unequal errors for which pulse oximetry is now known across many other areas of medicine.”

A recent review by MIT researchers finds that “only about 23% of machine learning studies in health care used multiple datasets to establish their results, compared to 80% in the adjacent field of computer vision, and 58% in natural language processing,” writes Casey Ross for STAT. “If the performance results are not reproduced in clinical care to the standard that was used during [a study], then we risk approving algorithms that we can’t trust,” says graduate student Matthew McDermott. “They may actually end up worsening patient care.”

Prof. Linda Griffith joins Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air to discuss how studying endometriosis could help unlock some of the mysteries of tissue regeneration. "The regeneration of the endometrium is weirdly not studied as much as it should be," she says. "But it's fascinating because you get about a centimeter of growth of tissue that has beautifully formed blood vessels, an immune system, all of the structures of the tissue — over a period of about two weeks."

Principal research scientist Leo Anthony Celi speaks with STAT reporter Katie Palmer about the importance of open data sharing in medical research, his new role as editor of PLOS Digital Health, and the challenges facing machine learning in medicine. “With digitization, we’re hoping each country will have an opportunity to create their own medical knowledge system,” says Celi.

Prof. Linda Griffith is on a mission to change the conversation about endometriosis “from one of women’s pain to one of biomarkers, genetics and molecular networks,” writes Rachel E. Gross for The New York Times. “The endometrium is inherently regenerative,” says Griffith. “So studying it, you’re studying a regenerative process — and how it goes wrong, in cases.” 

7 News reporter Byron Barnett spotlights how MIT researchers are developing new face masks aimed at stopping the spread of Covid-19. Prof. Giovanni Traverso is creating reusable masks with pop-put disposable filters, and Prof. Michael Strano is developing a mask that could “destroy the virus, using a nine-volt battery to heat the mask and kill the virus before the wearer breathes it in.”

Wall Street Journal reporter Suzanne Oliver spotlights two MIT efforts to innovate the face mask. Prof. Giovanni Traverso and his colleagues are developing a reusable, silicon-rubber mask with “sensors that give feedback on fit and functionality,” while Prof. Michael Strano has designed a version that “incorporates a copper mesh heated to about 160 degrees that traps and deactivates the virus.”

Popular Mechanics reporter Kyro Mitchell explores how MIT researchers have created a biodegradable medical patch that could be used to repair internal injuries. Mitchell notes that the patch “can be easily wrapped around robotic tools like a balloon catheter and a surgical stapler and then be inserted into the patient.”

Mashable reporter Kellen Beck spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a new medical patch that could be used to repair tears in organs and tissues.” Because internal surgeries involve small, specialized tools, the patch was created to fold around these tools and make insertion and use in tight spaces simpler. The patch resists contamination and biodegrades over time,” writes Beck.

Prof. Dava Newman speaks with Esther Paniagua of El País about her goals for her new role as director of the MIT Media Lab. “We want to accelerate positive change for people,” says Newman in this interview, which is in Spanish. “Trying to answer the big questions: equity, justice, inequality, climate and sustainability, people and communication, and education and learning.”

Wired reporter Will Knight spotlights how MIT researchers built a machine learning system that can help predict which patients are most likely to develop breast cancer. “What the AI tools are doing is they're extracting information that my eye and my brain can't,” says Constance Lehman, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and division chief of breast imaging at MGH.

Writing for The Boston Globe, Prof. Ramesh Raskar underscores the importance of ensuring that every American has the opportunity to receive the Covid-19 vaccine without cost or without giving up their privacy. “By effectively communicating the privacy benefits of decentralized data collection and anonymized data reporting, mobile apps might diminish barriers to vaccination that exist due to privacy concerns,” writes Raskar.

TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey writes that Prof. Dava Newman has been selected as the new director of the MIT Media Lab. Coldewey notes that Newman is "starting off the job by emphasizing one of the best qualities a leader should have: listening to the people she’ll be leading.”