Continuous Biosensing and Omics Transform Healthcare to Prevention

Key Quotes

"The bottom line is that it's really a collection of all as many molecules as you can measure and that's actually what we do we do very very deep measurements out of people's blood and urine to get a much better picture of their profile their health profile."

Dr. Michael Snyder explains that "omics" refers to measuring a vast array of molecules in the body. This approach provides a much more comprehensive view of an individual's health profile than traditional methods. Snyder highlights that this deep measurement capability is central to their work in understanding health.

"We're shifting from occasional doctor visits to continuous real time health tracking that could help us prevent illness long before it even starts."

Dr. Michael Snyder articulates a fundamental shift in healthcare. He contrasts the current reactive "sick care" model with a proactive approach focused on continuous monitoring. Snyder emphasizes that this real-time tracking aims to identify and prevent illnesses before symptoms manifest.

"I call it sick care we're trying to do true healthcare if this is so effective why aren't we doing this on a larger scale part of it's because uh who pays nobody pays to keep you healthy at least in the us especially we you know again the incentives are totally misaligned people will usually go to the doctor when they're ill and then they get paid for that."

Dr. Michael Snyder identifies a significant barrier to widespread adoption of preventative health monitoring. He points out that the current financial incentives in healthcare primarily reward treating illness rather than maintaining health. Snyder argues that this misalignment prevents proactive health measures from being prioritized and reimbursed.

"So we really need to go to true health monitoring and not sick care treatment and so that's a good example and i think on the wearables they're just so great because they measure you continuously 24 7 and so they're always tracking your health an analogy i like to use you know we all drive cars with dashboards the dashboards are telling about the car's health race cars have over 400 sensors on them and they relay the information to the dashboard so you can see what's going on yet here we are you know as people we don't have any dashboard for our health."

Dr. Michael Snyder uses a car dashboard analogy to illustrate the need for continuous health monitoring. He argues that just as cars have extensive sensor systems to track their health, humans should also have similar real-time health dashboards. Snyder advocates for a shift from "sick care" to "true health monitoring" facilitated by wearable devices.

"So beyond glucose monitoring one of the areas that we're working with at the moment is related to mental health monitoring currently staggering statistics there are 997 million people around the world who live with mental health disorders and challenges so one of the projects that we are undertaking at the moment is to monitor the concentration of cortisol so it's a stress biomarker that can be correlated with a number of mental health conditions."

Professor Ali Yetisen discusses the application of biosensing technology to mental health. He highlights the prevalence of mental health disorders globally and explains their research into monitoring cortisol, a stress biomarker. Yetisen indicates that tracking cortisol levels can provide insights into conditions like anxiety and depression.

"So the whole idea here is to move from a single snapshot image i'm talking about a clinical diagnostics and hospital settings to real time or continuous monitoring platforms that we can alert patients in real time so in the case of the cortisol sensor the color will change for example from blue to green to orange to red so these gradual changes in colors will be able to alert the patient in real time."

Professor Ali Yetisen elaborates on the benefits of continuous monitoring with their tattoo biosensor technology. He explains that instead of a single diagnostic reading, the technology provides real-time color changes that alert patients to fluctuations in biomarkers like cortisol. Yetisen emphasizes that this immediate feedback allows for proactive intervention.