#173 - Quick! To the Robotarium! 🤖

The one-minute healthtech roundup

Hi friends,

This week: Going deep with LLMs, Robots Robots Robots, and there’s simply not mushroom for VR in healthcare….

News Bites 🥪

🍄 This bold psychedelic and VR fusion therapy could spark a mental health revolution – Dig out the Meta Quest 3 and chow down on the mushrooms, because we’re mixing psychedelics and VR in the name of mental health. Or don’t….Pigeon’s not a doctor*, we can’t tell you what to do.

🥊 Start-up receives fresh funding to advance robotic glove for rehabilitation – Let’s skip past the part where we ask how we’ve never heard of the National Robotarium before now, and instead shout out Bioliberty’s wow-worthy glove technology and the potential impact for stroke patients. …seriously though, Pigeon’s waiting for an invite to the robotarium.

🩺 AI laser that reads heartbeat through the throat could replace stethoscopes – A man in a coat approaches you while you’re out and tells you he shot a laser at you and you have an irregular heartbeat. What do you do? Well, we may soon find out, as LightHearted AI endeavour to replace a technology that’s been around for nearly 200 years….sort-of.

🤝 NEJM Study: Towards Accurate Differential Diagnosis with Large Language Models – There’s a lot to break down in this Google/Deepmind study (which caught the eye of health maven Eric Topol) comparing the diagnostic reasoning of a standalone LLM, an LLM as an assistive tool for clinicians, and said clinicians without the support of an LLM. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the LLM was seen as “a helpful AI tool for DDx generation for specialist clinicians”. That said, the study — and much of the literature around LLMs in health — does have its critics, as this analysis from AI Researcher Josh Au Yeung (of Dev & Doc podcast fame) shows.

🦾 Surgeons begin training to use robots for cancer operations with virtual reality – More robots, courtesy of Welsh hospitals, which are training their staff to operate using CMR surgical robots using virtual reality.  Can Pigeon have a go?

☢️ The doctor will call you now: are remote GP appointments safe? – Spoiler: some bad things have happened during remote GP appointments, but does that mean you shouldn’t accept one? No, because statistically those bad things haven’t happened very often. Let’s face it, there’s probably more risk associated with the drive to the GP surgery.

🧬 Orchid Introduces Whole Genome Sequencing Reports for Embryos After Raising $12M in Funding – Want to know as much as possible about the genetic makeup of your child and the potential health challenges they may face in the future….before you even meet them? That’s what Orchid have set out to achieve, by sequencing 99% of an embryo’s genome – a dramatic rise from the 0.25% most tests read. As interesting as the technology is the list of investors, a who’s who of VCs and angels.

🔄 Generative AI could revolutionize health care — but not if control is ceded to big tech – A new article in Nature summarises and expands on the open source vs closed box debate about the role of LLMs in healthcare. 

🤖 Six imperatives for AI-first companies – Are you an AI-first company or an AI enabled company? If Pigeon gets lazy and asks ChatGPT to write the rest of the newsletter, does that make this an AI-first publication? Bessemer Venture Partners never fails to ask (and answer) the questions startups will have to consider to be successful, and this article is no different.

Need help Buy-O-ing gifts? 🎁

Ten gift ideas for a biotech enthusiast this holiday season — Kids outgrown their chemistry set? Got a friend that’s expressed interest in CRISPR? No matter who the budding biotech enthusiast in your life is, Labiotech has got the must-have gift ideas to solve your present-giving paralysis.

What to listen to 🔊

🐦 Healthtech Pigeon - Quick! To the Robotarium! - Jessica, James and One Health’s Dr Faris Al-Ramadani take a deep dive into the week’s healthtech news and view.

🔊The Healthtech Podcast #332 The dangers of the microbiome hype & the need for scientific rigour - This week we look back at episode 293, where James and Myota founder Thomas Gurry discuss the recent surge in public understanding of nutrition and the microbiome, the remaining knowledge gap, and the need to be wary of "cowboy" companies mistaking correlation for causation.

Events 📅

HETT North
🕣 28 February
📍 Manchester

HealthTechX Summit 2024
🕣 28 February - Use HTX24SMITH for 30% off your ticket
📍 The Hurlingham Club, London

London Biotechnology Show
🕣 8-9 May 2024
📍 Olympia West, London

Opportunities 🕵️‍♀️

1️⃣ One HealthTech Fellowship - call for applications - The fellowship that aims to improve and augment health equity through innovation returns for 2024, and they’re welcoming new fellows. The deadline to apply is 20 December, but there’s a few drop-in opportunities before then, so get moving!

🧬 Diagnostic Project Manager, Oxford Nanopore Technologies - Know your ISO13485 product development lifecycle like the back of your hand? As well as being a riot at parties, you’re also perfect for this role at one of the most exciting health companies out there.

📊 Junior Clinical EHR Analyst, Suvera - Get involved and support Suvera to improve and maintain the quality of their EHR and data analytics systems.

👤 Head of Technology, Healthcare, Digital Services, Kainos - A big role going at Software giant Kainos. If you’ve got the right mix of healthcare and technology experience, this could be a great fit.

📠 Post Doctoral Researcher — Parkinson’s Digital Health, University of Oxford - How can deep learning and Machine Learning Algorithms be used to measure the progression of Parkinson’s Disease? Well, if you go for this job, you’ll have to come and tell us.

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*It’s really important you don’t treat anything in Pigeon as medical advice. But, If you do, that’s kind of your problem.

Got news, jobs or events you think is worth coo-ing over? Let us know! Email us: news@healthtechpigeon.com

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