Each finalist team was expected to deliver 30 working prototypes, which will now undergo a battery of tests with real patients. This month, the final phase of the competition starts. More than 300 teams registered, and after a series of reviews, the organizers selected 10 finalists, announced last August. chipmaker Qualcomm challenged innovators from around the world to develop a portable, consumer-friendly device capable of diagnosing a comprehensive set of medical conditions. The competition launched in 2012, when the XPrize Foundation and U.S. Rypinski is the leader of Aezon, one of the teams participating in the Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize. It’s even worse in the developing world, where a shortage of medical facilities and personnel means that seeing a doctor may not be an option at all. A lot of waiting is involved, and waiting is the last thing you want to do when you’re sick. And if you need laboratory tests, receiving a diagnosis can take even longer. Here in the real world, though, if you have a nonemergency situation, you may wait days-weeks, in some places-to see a physician. With a wave of this fictional device, a Starfleet crew member could get a comprehensive medical analysis without having to be admitted to the ship’s sick bay. Like the transporter, which could “beam” people between starships and planets without asking the audience to sit through lengthy landing sequences, the tricorder could rapidly diagnose medical conditions and suggest treatments, keeping the story moving. In 1966, “Star Trek” introduced the tricorder as, in essence, a plot device. The students have agreed to meet me here to discuss their work on a project whose goal is not just inspired by science fiction-it actually comes straight out of “Star Trek.” They want to build a medical tricorder. A tool cart is in one corner, a microscope in another. Rypinski and a few of her colleagues gather near some worktables with power outlets dangling from the ceiling. She gets to her feet and heads to the Biomedical Engineering Design Studio, a hybrid of prototyping space, wet lab, and machine shop at the Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus, in Baltimore. Tatiana Rypinski is maybe two bites into her salad when she realizes it’s time for her next meeting.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |