I feel like I’ve been writing a lot about futures I was pretty worried about, so I’m pleased to have a couple developments to talk about that help remind me that technology is cool and that healthcare can surely use more of it.
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Technology can still give us hope for the future. Credit: Microsoft Designer |
First up is a new AI algorithm called FaceAge, as published last week in The Lancet Digital Health by researchers at Mass General Brigham. What it does is to use photographs to determine biological age – as opposed to chronological age. We all know that different people seem to age at different rates – I mean, honestly, how old is Paul Rudd??? – but until now the link between how people look and their health status was intuitive at best.
Moreover,
the algorithm can help determine survival outcomes for various types of cancer.
Curiously,
the algorithm doesn’t seem to care about whether someone is bald or has grey
hair, and may be using more subtle clues, such as muscle tone. It is unclear
what difference makeup, lighting, or plastic surgery makes. “So this is
something that we are actively investigating and researching,” Dr. Aerts told
The Washington Post. “We’re now testing in various datasets [to see]
how we can make the algorithm robust against this.”
Moreover,
it was trained primarily on white faces, which the researchers acknowledge as a
deficiency. “I’d be very worried about whether this tool works equally well for
all populations, for example women, older adults, racial and ethnic minorities,
those with various disabilities, pregnant women and the like,” Jennifer E.
Miller, the co-director of the program for biomedical ethics at Yale University,
told
The New York Times.
The
researchers believe FaceAge can be used to better estimate survival rates for
cancer patients. It turns out that when physicians try to gauge them simply by
looking, their guess is essentially like tossing a coin. When paired with
FaceAge’s insights, the accuracy can go up to about 80%.
Dr. Aerts
says: “This work demonstrates that a photo like a simple selfie contains
important information that could help to inform clinical decision-making and
care plans for patients and clinicians. How old someone looks compared to their
chronological age really matters—individuals with FaceAges that are younger
than their chronological ages do significantly better after cancer therapy.”
I’m
especially thrilled about this because ten
years ago I speculated about using selfies and facial recognition AI to determine
if we had conditions that were prematurely aging us, or even we were just
getting sick. It appears the Mass General Brigham researchers agree. “This
opens the door to a whole new realm of biomarker discovery from photographs,
and its potential goes far beyond cancer care or predicting age,” said
co-senior author Ray Mak, MD, a faculty member in the AIM program at Mass
General Brigham. “As we increasingly think of different chronic diseases as
diseases of aging, it becomes even more important to be able to accurately
predict an individual’s aging trajectory. I hope we can ultimately use this
technology as an early detection system in a variety of applications, within a
strong regulatory and ethical framework, to help save lives.”
The
researchers acknowledge that much has to be accomplished before it is
introduced for commercial purposes, and that strong oversight will be needed to
ensure, as Dr. Aerts told
WaPo, “these AI technologies are being used in the right way, really
only for the benefit of the patients.” As Daniel Belsky, a Columbia University
epidemiologist, told The New York Times: “There’s a long way between
where we are today and actually using these tools in a clinical setting.”
The second
development is even more out there. Let me break down the CalTech News
headline: “3D Printing.” OK, you’ve got my attention. “In Vivo.” Color
me highly intrigued. “Using Sound.” Mind. Blown.
That’s
right. This team of researchers have “developed a method for 3D printing
polymers at specific locations deep within living animals.” Apparently, 3D
printing has been done in vivo previously, but using infrared light. “But
infrared penetration is very limited. It only reaches right below the
skin," says Wei Gao,
professor of medical engineering at Caltech and corresponding author. "Our
new technique reaches the deep tissue and can print a variety of materials for
a broad range of applications, all while maintaining excellent
biocompatibility."
They call
the technique the deep tissue in vivo sound printing (DISP) platform.
“The DISP
technology offers a versatile platform for printing a wide range of functional
biomaterials, unlocking applications in bioelectronics, drug delivery, tissue
engineering, wound sealing, and beyond,” the team stated. “By enabling precise
control over material properties and spatial resolution, DISP is ideal for
creating functional structures and patterns directly within living
tissues.”
The
authors concluded: “DISP’s ability to print conductive, drug-loaded,
cell-laden, and bioadhesive biomaterials demonstrates its versatility for
diverse biomedical applications.”
I’ll spare
you the details, which involve, among other things, ultrasound and low
temperature sensitive liposomes. The key takeaway is this: "We have
already shown in a small animal that we can print drug-loaded hydrogels for
tumor treatment," Dr. Gao says. "Our next stage is to try to print in
a larger animal model, and hopefully, in the near future, we can evaluate this
in humans... "In
the future, with the help of AI, we would like to be able to autonomously
trigger high-precision printing within a moving organ such as a beating
heart,"
Dr. Gao also
points out that not only can they add bio-ink where desired, but they could
remove it if needed. Minimally invasive surgery seems crude by comparison.
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Yeah, DISP can do all that. Credit: Elham Davoodi and Wei Gao |
First
author Elham
Davoodi has high hopes. “It’s quite versatile…It’s a new research direction
in the field of bioprinting.”
“Quite
exciting” doesn’t do it justice.
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In these
topsy-turvy days, we must find our solace where we can, and these are the kinds
of things that make me hopeful about the future.