Impulse - Meeting Healthcare Pioneers

Is there a simple way to know your hydration level? Not really. It's a surprising reality, considering our bodies are composed of roughly 60% water. When you consider that half of all people drink less than recommended and that chronic dehydration leads to an increased risk of chronic diseases and premature mortality, it becomes clear that monitoring this parameter daily is a public health imperative. The good news is that Mark Kendall and his team at WearOptimo have developed a technology that could be a game-changer. It's a wearable sensor, similar to a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) patch, capable of continuously and non-invasively measuring our body's water content at any given moment—a technological feat that relies on one of our largest water reservoirs: our skin. In this episode, we unpack how Mark and his team developed this sensor and explore the science behind how it works. We discuss what this could change for our understanding of human physiology, not only in extreme situations for elite athletes but, more importantly, in our everyday lives. Join us for an episode on the fundamental role of water in the body, the skin's critical role in its regulation, and the window of opportunity this organ opens for sensing other essential molecules right from its surface! Timeline: 00:00:00 - Mark’s journey as a biomedical engineer creating technologies for drug delivery and sensing through the skin 00:05:10 - The dehydration pandemic and the opportunity around hydration sensing 00:12:34 - Building a skin patch to monitor hydration levels with clinical-grade precision and no needle 00:22:47 - Relevant use cases for the WearOptimo sensor and complementarity with other wearables 00:25:40 - Going toward one wearable platform to measure multiple biomarkers at once 00:27:20 - The next steps for WearOptimo and scaling up its commercialisation efforts 00:29:55 - Working alongside ex-Formula 1 driver Mark Webber to understand hydration in elite athletes 00:34:10 - Mark’s tips and tricks to stay hydrated What we also talked about with Mark: Gates Foundation Nanopatch Continuous Glucose Monitoring Whole-body impedance Formula 1 Mark Webber Oscar Piastri Prof. Robert Langer Moderna We mentioned with Mark some of the past episodes of the series: #39 - Crafting the best connected health experience - Matthieu Menanteau - Withings #23 - Disrupting the smart wearables industry - Leo Grünstein - Spiden #11 - Turning the lab into a wearable platform - Esmeralda Megally - Xsensio As suggested by Mark during the episode, you can learn more about the long-term health outcomes associated with hydration status by reading the paper from Natalia I. Dmitrieva et al. published in Nature Reviews Nephrology in 2024. You can also watch Mark’s TED Talk about the Nanopatch, the needle-free immunisation technology that he pioneered, on YouTube. You can get in touch with Mark via LinkedIn, and follow WearOptimo’s activities on their website, LinkedIn, and X. ✉️ If you want to give me feedback on the episode or suggest potential guests, contact me over LinkedIn or via email! ⭐️ And if you liked the episode, please share it, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a 5-star review on streaming platforms! 🙏 You can also support my work by doing a PayPal donation @ImpulsePodcast! 👍 Lastly, don’t forget to follow our activities on LinkedIn and our website!

Three years after the 2022 "crypto winter" severely damaged public confidence in these technologies (even among healthcare leaders), the term Web3 is conspicuously absent from the current healthtech space. So, what happened? And where do we really stand with the adoption of these technologies within our healthcare systems? Anca Petre is perfectly positioned to give us answers. A trained pharmacist, she has been exploring Web3 and its healthcare applications for over eight years, speaking on the international stage to educate and share key insights on using these technologies to improve health outcomes. Her assessment is stark: while the core value proposition of Web3 in health remains intact—offering breakthroughs in traceability, security, and patient control over data—its adoption by key players is still marginal. In this episode, Anca shares her analysis of the current landscape, her belief in the untapped potential of these technologies, and a preview of what tomorrow's medical research could look like, powered by decentralised science. Tune in for a conversation with a true health geek, one with her feet firmly planted in the realities of today's systems! Timeline: 00:00:00 - Anca’s journey at the interface of healthcare, Web3, and content creation 00:04:14 - Today’s value proposition and use cases for Web3 in healthcare 00:07:02 - Why we hear less about Web3 in healthcare these days 00:13:51 - Making the Web3 user experience flawless in healthcare 00:16:50 - Where Web3 did not live up to its promises in healthcare 00:18:32 - The interplays of Web3 and AI in healthcare 00:24:39 - Healthcare innovation and its dependencies on systemic changes 00:33:49 - Paving a new way for medical research with decentralised science What we also talked about with Anca: Jim Nasr MedShake Studio ChatGPT Metaverse NFTs Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) DeSci Nordics We cited with Anca some of the past episodes of the series: #10 - Applying blockchain technology to healthcare - Eberhard Scheuer - dHealth Foundation As suggested by Anca during the episode, you can learn more about Web3 and its applications in healthcare through the podcast Tech Anatomy that she is hosting and producing. For further information on the topic, she recommends consulting IEEE.org, following Allie K. Miller’s work, and looking at Molecule.xyz in case you want to dive deeper into decentralised science. You can follow Anca’s activities on LinkedIn, X, and YouTube, and discover the other podcasts she is producing for healthcare clients with MedShake Studio! ✉️ If you want to give me feedback on the episode or suggest potential guests, contact me over LinkedIn or via email! ⭐️ And if you liked the episode, please share it, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a 5-star review on streaming platforms! 🙏 You can also support my work by doing a PayPal donation @ImpulsePodcast! 👍 Lastly, don’t forget to follow our activities on LinkedIn and our website!

What's the link between quantum physics, AI, and drug discovery? Maximilien Levesque might be the perfect person to answer. A former theoretical physicist, he realised his research could transform drug development by fundamentally understanding how molecules interact at the atomic level. In 2019, he co-founded Aqemia with Emmanuelle Martiano Rolland to turn that vision into reality. Their mission is bold: to design new molecules, atom by atom, capable of binding "undruggable" therapeutic targets. Unlike AI models that base themselves on existing compounds, Aqemia's generative engine creates novel structures, opening up a new universe of possibilities. In this episode, Maximilien pulls back the curtain on one of TechBio's most promising startups. With passion and clarity, he breaks down their approach to drug design, explaining how these "digitally-native" compounds go from the numeric world to real-world testing. A conversation to understand the ins and outs of an ongoing revolution in the pharmaceutical industry! Timeline: 00:00:00 - Maximilien’s background as a researcher in mathematics and quantum physics 00:03:46 - What drew Maximilien to drug discovery 00:05:43 - The link between quantum physics and drug discovery 00:10:27 - Aqemia’s technology to design new molecules atom-by-atom 00:18:36 - Aqemia’s pipeline and ongoing preclinical programs 00:20:27 - The difference between AI-based drug discovery and physics-based drug discovery 00:27:55 - Striking a balance between internal development programs and external collaborations 00:32:35 - Aqemia’s approach to talent recruitment at the interface of biology, mathematics, and computer science 00:34:23 - Maximilien’s wish to enter clinical trials in 2026 What we also talked about with Maximilien: HIMSS Europe École Normale Supérieur (ENS) Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA) Ornstein-Zernike equation American Institute of Physics Sanofi Institut Gustave Roussy We cited with Maximilien some of the past episodes of the series: #40 - Cracking biology through AI - JP Vert - Owkin #33 - Building the next TechBio venture - Mati Gill - AION Labs #13 - Catalyzing drug discovery using organ-on-a-chip models - Bas Trietsch - Mimetas You can learn more about Maximilien’s publications here and prompt ChatGPT, as he suggested, to find out more about quantum physics, AI, and their applications in the field of drug discovery! You can reach out to Maximilien via LinkedIn and follow Aqemia’s activities on their website and LinkedIn page! ✉️ If you want to give me feedback on the episode or suggest potential guests, contact me over LinkedIn or via email! ⭐️ And if you liked the episode, please share it, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a 5-star review on streaming platforms! 🙏 You can also support my work by doing a PayPal donation @ImpulsePodcast! 👍 Lastly, don’t forget to follow our activities on LinkedIn and our website!

Can we learn from extreme cancer survivors to develop new treatments? This is the bet that Nicolas Wolikow and his team at Cure51 are making. Backed by the world's top cancer centers and specialists, they work around the clock to build the largest-ever health dataset of patients who defied the odds—people diagnosed with stage 4 cancer who were given a few months to live, yet survived more than five years. The goal is to understand what makes their biology unique and what characterises their incredible response to the treatments they received. A unique approach to identify new therapeutic targets and enrich our arsenal against a disease whose incidence continues to grow day by day. In this episode, Nicolas lifts the veil on the rigorous method they follow to achieve this feat, from the collection of clinical and multi-omics data to the identification of these targets and their validation in clinical trials. A method to reverse-engineer cancer survival, founded on the latest progress in computational biology, and whose success depends on the close collaboration between patients, hospitals, and industrial partners! Timeline: 00:00:00 - Nicolas’ background as an entrepreneur at the interface of healthcare, technology, and digital innovation 00:06:45 - Understanding the mechanisms behind cancer thanks to exceptional survivors 00:10:24 - Stories of patients in full remission after a stage 4 cancer diagnosis 00:12:21 - Building the platform to host the largest dataset of cancer survivors ever made 00:14:36 - Making sense of the survivors’ data to identify underlying biological mechanisms 00:19:28 - Early findings and novel therapeutic targets investigated so far 00:28:18 - The economic model behind Cure51 00:30:45 - Convincing hospitals and health systems to join Cure51’s mission What we also talked about with Nicolas: HLTH Europe Cancer stages Chemotherapy Rosalind Franklin Variant.bio We cited with Nicolas some of the past episodes of the series: #40 - Cracking biology through AI - JP Vert - Owkin As Nicolas mentioned during the episode, you can learn more about Cure51’s activities on their website, and follow their latest news on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. You can reach out to Nicolas via LinkedIn and find more details about the ROSALIND study in this abstract. To hear Camille Moses’ incredible story as a cancer survivor, we invite you to listen to her testimonial on the Project Purple podcast. ✉️ If you want to give me feedback on the episode or suggest potential guests, contact me over LinkedIn or via email! ⭐️ And if you liked the episode, please share it, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a 5-star review on streaming platforms! 🙏 You can also support my work by doing a PayPal donation @ImpulsePodcast! 👍 Lastly, don’t forget to follow our activities on LinkedIn and our website!

Disclaimer: Blythe and I both work for Roche; nevertheless, all opinions expressed in this episode are our own and do not necessarily represent the position of our employer. What's really behind the term "real-world data" in clinical science? And what can it actually be used for? I asked Blythe Adamson of Flatiron Health to find out the answer. It turns out real-world data is all the medical data collected in the “real world”, meaning outside of any clinical trial. In other words, it's the vast majority of medical data that exists. This includes everything from the results of blood tests, scans, and vaccinations to doctors' handwritten notes. While the idea of using it to develop new treatments seems obvious, the reality is far from simple. Because access to this data is disparate and varies from one country to another. Because the diversity of their modality renders their interpretation complex. And because until recently, we did not have the computational tools to make it work. But now, in the age of AI and mass digitalisation of healthcare, all of this is changing at lightning speed. Drawing on her expertise at the intersection of epidemiology, data science, and health policy, Blythe walks us through the immense challenges and opportunities of real-world data, and how they are poised to revolutionise the development of tomorrow's therapies. An episode to understand precision medicine and the central role of real-world evidence! Timeline: 00:00:00 - Blythe’s background at the interface of epidemiology, data science, and health policy 00:09:33 - The power of real-world data in medicine and drug development 00:17:11 - The barriers to accessing and leveraging real-world data at scale 00:20:26 - Two examples where AI can help make sense of real-world data 00:25:46 - Traditionally overlooked real-world data modalities in medicine 00:27:52 - Breaking down language barriers across real-world datasets 00:35:10 - Some predictions on the next AI-driven breakthroughs in oncology What we also talked about with Blythe: Operation Warp Speed Resilience Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) Trusted Research Environments De-identification American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) American Heart Association European Society of Cardiology We cited with Blythe some of the past episodes of the series: #40 - Cracking biology through AI - JP Vert - Owkin As Blythe mentioned during the episode, you can visit her blog at blytheadamson.com for more information about her work. The book recommended by Blythe is Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen. You can get in touch with Blythe via LinkedIn, and follow the activities of Flatiron Health on LinkedIn, X, and Instagram. ✉️ If you want to give me feedback on the episode or suggest potential guests, contact me over LinkedIn or via email! ⭐️ And if you liked the episode, please share it, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a 5-star review on streaming platforms! 🙏 You can also support my work by doing a PayPal donation @ImpulsePodcast! 👍 Lastly, don’t forget to follow our activities on LinkedIn and our website!

How can we solve the puzzle of regulating AI in healthcare? This is the question that Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite and his team at HealthAI - The Global Agency for Responsible AI in Health ask themselves every day. Their goal? To help international organizations, governments, and local stakeholders strike a balance between regulation and access to the latest innovation in the field. A thorny equation, considering the speed of progress in AI and the time it takes to establish a regulatory framework that, by definition, applies in the long term. With passion and enthusiasm, Ricardo shares the approach they are taking to achieve their mission: by fostering a global community to share best practices and adverse events, by building tailored in-country mechanisms aligned with international guidelines, and by curating the most comprehensive directory of registered AI solutions, which countries and innovators can consider. One thing seems certain: we must evaluate these new technologies from a risk-benefit perspective, drawing on the well-known methods of post-market monitoring that have been applied to pharmaceutical products for decades. A way to remain critical of their use, grant patients and healthcare professionals access to them, and to drive this transformative shift with confidence and security. Timeline: 00:00:00 - Ricardo’s background at the interface of medicine, research, and health policy 00:04:55 - Why we are at a turning point in healthcare 00:08:33 - HealthAI’s role in translating international guidelines for AI use in healthcare to local realities 00:13:08 - Bridging long-term regulation and rapid technological progress 00:21:55 - Curating the right AI solutions in healthcare 00:25:55 - Building trust and adoption among clinicians and patients 00:32:26 - The parallel between elevators and AI in healthcare 00:37:30 - The potential of AI for predictive population health management What we also talked about with Ricardo: HIMSS Europe Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) Stéphanie Allassonniere Agentic AI Ambient AI Elisha Otis As Ricardo mentioned during the episode, you can learn more about HealthAI here and follow their activities on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube. The books recommended in the episode include AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia, and Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. We both strongly recommend the newsletter Ground Truths by Dr. Eric Topol, a reference for staying up to date on the latest advances in medicine. You can get in touch with Ricardo via LinkedIn. ✉️ If you want to give me feedback on the episode or suggest potential guests, contact me over LinkedIn or via email! ⭐️ And if you liked the episode, please share it, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a 5-star review on streaming platforms! 🙏 You can also support my work by doing a PayPal donation @ImpulsePodcast! 👍 Lastly, don’t forget to follow our activities on LinkedIn and our website!

When we think of the term "medicine," one of the symbols that comes to mind is the stethoscope. Its use in almost every physical examination by healthcare providers makes it one of the most iconic and widely recognized medical devices. Despite the emergence of digital technologies and the first electronic stethoscopes, their operating principle and design still rely heavily on the patent filed by Dr. David Littmann in the 1960s. But in the era of miniaturization and artificial intelligence, there is a reason to believe that the stethoscope is ripe for a true transformation. Among those who share this opinion are Lapsi Health and the team of Diana van Stijn. Inspired by her experience as a pediatrician and the central role of body sounds in her profession, Diana envisions a new kind of stethoscope—without tubing, fitting in the palm of a hand, and leveraging the latest technological advancements to better equip physicians. This vision gave birth to Keikku, a next-generation digital stethoscope. Beyond rethinking the format and use of the stethoscope for doctors, Diana and her colleagues imagine a future where patients can use it themselves, paving the way for continuous auscultation. In this episode, we explore how Diana and her team are turning this vision into reality, and what it could mean for the prevention, detection, and monitoring of diseases, extending far beyond pediatrics. With humor and enthusiasm, Diana also shares a few secrets about her approach to balancing clinical practice, motherhood, and entrepreneurship in healthcare! Timeline: 00:00:00 - Diana’s background as a Pediatrician, startup Co-Founder, and former National Team Swimmer 00:11:10 - The role of body sounds in medicine 00:15:08 - Early ideas on disrupting traditional stethoscopes 00:22:21 - Building Keikku, a portable, intuitive, and radically modern stethoscope 00:26:43 - Incorporating AI in the interpretation of body sounds 00:30:50 - Moving toward continuous auscultation and getting Keikku into the hands of patients What we also talked about with Diana: Shavini Fernando MedTech World Cirque du Soleil Jhonatan Bringas Dimitriades Magnetic Resonance Imaging Computed Tomography As Diana mentioned during the episode, you can learn more about Keikku here and the other devices in Lapsi Health’s pipeline via their official website. To dive further into some of the topics mentioned in the episode, Diana recommends reading Intelligence-Based Medicine: Artificial Intelligence and Human Cognition in Clinical Medicine and Healthcare by Anthony C. Chang and the article published on JMIR Publications that she co-authored, Promises, Pitfalls, and Clinical Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Pediatrics by Bhargava H. et al. You can follow Lapsi Health’s activities on LinkedIn, and get in touch with Diana via LinkedIn too! ✉️ If you want to give me feedback on the episode or suggest potential guests, contact me over LinkedIn or via email! ⭐️ And if you liked the episode, please share it, subscribe to the podcast, and leave a 5-star review on streaming platforms! 🙏 You can also support my work by doing a PayPal donation @ImpulsePodcast! 👍 Lastly, don’t forget to follow our activities on LinkedIn and our website!