SAN DIEGO, HOTEL DEL CORONADO - NOV 9-12 - 2015
EVENT SYNOPSIS
1
4 DAYS OF BRILLIANT CONTENT
50 HOT STARTUPS
60 STELLAR FACULTY
600 HIGH ENERGY PARTICIPANTS
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10^9 CONVERSATIONS SPARKED
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From the canvas of images and conversations,
Exponential Medicine 2015, was a roaring success. The
beachside location at the historic Hotel del Coronado,
just outside San Diego, played a prominent role in
creating the magic that 550 selected participants from
around the world experienced. They were joined by
60+ world class faculty and 55 selected startups for an
intense 4 days exploring the cutting edge and future
of health and medicine, crossing from wellness and
prevention, to the future of diagnosis, therapy and
discovery.
I had the honor of curating and chairing this unique
and highly interdisciplinary gathering produced
by Singularity University which blended a mix of
talks, workshops, and hands-on demos with beach
side bonding, bonfires, silent-discos, a participant
Unconference and more.
Now in our 6th year, our team and conference partners
are inspired by the number and quality of relationships,
collaborations, new companies, and ideas sparked at
this and our earlier gatherings. It’s exciting watching
them take hold and create meaningful impact.
We’ve compiled key insights, video links, and summaries
from the 2015 Exponential Medicine program to help
you wrap your thoughts and actions around all that you
experienced during the conference.
Our very best,
Daniel Kraft MD
and the entire Exponential Medicine Team
4
DAY
ONE
SAN DIEGO / 9 NOVEMBER 2015
THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE, WHERE CAN TECHNOLOGY TAKE US?
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE • ROBOTICS
BIG DATA & MACHINE LEARNING • MAPPR.IO • BRINGING EXPONENTIALS TO PHARMA
DIGITAL MANUFACTURING • NANOTECHNOLOGY & NANOMEDICINE
BLOCKCHAIN & DIGITAL CURRENCY • BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOHACKING
RE-IMAGINING DRUG DISCOVERY AND DIAGNOSTICS
5
INTRODUCTION
TO EXPONENTIALS
SESSION
1
Will Weisman
Executive Director of Conferences, Singularity University
Daniel Kraft MD
Founding Executive Director and Chair of Exponential Medicine
Brad Templeton
Director and former chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Networks & Computing Chair for Singularity University
Founder of ClariNet, the world’s first internet-based business
Neil Jacobstein
Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Co-Chair at Singularity University
Former CEO of Teknowledge Corporation
Rob Nail
Associate Founder & CEO, Singularity University
Jeremy Howard
Founder and CEO, Enlitic
Former President and Chief Scientist at Kaggle
Kaustuv DeBiswas
Co-Founder & Director of Technology, Mappr
“But what does that have to do with medicine?”
If we’re doing our job well, you asked
that question many times at Exponential
Medicine. It’s easy to imagine the effects
of wearables or implantables, but had you
considered the impact of big data, machine
learning, blockchain, and autonomous
vehicles on medicine, health, and care
delivery?
“We’ve been delivering reimbursement
based medicine, not results based health
care. We need to be proactive, not reactive”
-- Daniel Kraft MD
6
Convergence is the key. Consider Uber.
They didn’t invent the smartphone,
mapping programs, taxi service, or GPS.
What they discovered was the convergence
point of a group of existing technologies
and leveraged them to rethink
transportation, create a massive shift in
mobility, build a company with a multibillion dollar valuation and a platform to
support greater innovation. We need that
type of thinking in health care.
We’re discovering new ways to engage and
empower patients and incorporate health
care into their daily lives. Telemedicine,
augmented reality, and virtual reality can
bring care to where people live, work, and
play. As the internet of things becomes a
reality, millions of sensors and connected
devices can provide real-time patient
data and machine learning to interpret it
and guide decision making at the point of
choice.
Wearables. Implantables. The microbiome
and the proteome. Pharmacogenomics.
Robots, the blockchain, and autonomous
cars. CRISPR, robots, AI, and deep machine
learning. The future of health care lies in
the overlap between these technologies.
Convergence is key.
“Our connection with technology is social
and is evolving quickly.”
-- Rob Nail
“Last year I said that deep learning
was about to change the world.
Today I say ‘it’s happening’”
-- Jeremy Howard
“You’ll be exposed to a wide
range of ideas here. It’s easy to
feel intimidated by it, so keep
in mind there was a time when
Einstein couldn’t count to 10 and
Shakespeare didn’t know his
ABC’s. Even if you haven’t
gotten it yet, you can with time.”
-- Will Weisman
“If you are not a
software company
now; you may not
be a company in the
near future. If you
are not a software
doctor now; you may
not be a doctor in the
near future”
“The human brain
hasn’t had a major
upgrade in over
50,000 years.”
-- Neil Jacobstein
-- Brad Templeton
7
SESSION
2
Stephane Bancel
Chief Executive Officer, Moderna Therapeutics
Katie Weimer
Vice President, Medical Devices, 3D Systems Healthcare
Andrew Hessel
Founder, Pink Army; Distinguished Researcher with Autodesk Inc.’s Bio/Nano Programmable Matter group
Chelsea Barabas
Senior Advisor for Social Impact, MIT Media Lab
Raymond McCauley
Biotech Track Chair at Singularity University Co-founder & Chief Architect for BioCurious
Atul Butte MD PhD
Director of the Institute of Computational Health Sciences, UC San Francisco
Technology not only brings us new insights, it overturns
commonly held medical myths. mRNA, once thought to trigger
violent responses in the immune system is being repurposed
to create a cocktail of antibodies in a single dose. Raymond
McCauley talked about bio hackerspaces and the exciting field
of recreational genomics. At BioCurious, kids are learning to
sequence their own DNA and make jellyfish glow in the dark.
“We’re experiencing
a renaissance in
biotechnology”
“We’ll be able to
replace standard
cancer tests
in this decade
and find cancer
early enough
to do something
about it.”
--Raymond McCauley
“The future of drug discovery is digital”
--Stephane Bancel
8
The first additive manufacturing patent
was filed in 1892, but we’ve only just begun
to discover what 3D printing can do for
the field of medicine and the scale of
impact the maker movement will have.
“Biology is nanotechnology that works. Think small!”
“We’re coming to the end of Moore’s Law in 2D.
We need to go somewhere else if we want to continue moving forward”
--Andrew Hessel
Kate Weimer shared how “maker
philanthropy” brings prosthetics to those in
need and is growing as a fashion statement.
It’s changed the world of optometry. Why
not the rest of the medical world? Want a
teenage girl to wear her scoliosis brace?
Let her design it. Make it fashionable and
thin enough to wear under her clothing
of choice. Getting patients involved in
their treatment improves adherence, and
adherence improves health.
Medicine continues to influence culture. 3D
printing showed up on “Grey’s Anatomy”
this year; 23andMe connects users to a
whole world of people with similar genetics.
The era of patient involvement is already
underway. It’s up to us to harness the
excitement and embrace the technology.
Take technology into your own hands and see what you can do with it”
--Katie Weimer
“With the Blockchain, we can make
ecosystem improvements”
--Chelsea Barabas
9
Reimagining Drug Discovery and Diagnosis
Atul Butte MD PhD
We are treading water in a sea of data. By the end of this decade,
NASA telescopes alone will be putting out exabytes of data. At this
point, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration is
crowdsourcing its astrometric data because it can’t hire enough
astronomers. Medicine is at the same juncture.
This has the potential to be an enormous boon for biometric
research. Our current classifications are wildly imprecise. Despite
the wide and varied number of lung cancers in existence today, we
classify them only as “left” and “right”. We can do better. We now
have the data to classify them by molecular component.
“We have the answer to almost everything;
the hardest part is finding the question”
“When I think big data, I think retroactive
crowdsourcing”
“My doctor’s billion dollar system doesn’t
talk to my $40 gadget”
“Big data in biotech is hope”
“We need more garage level startups for
biotech. The data is just sitting there”
“I don’t trust any one experiment;
I trust what they have in common”
--Atul Butte MD PhD
10
Let’s do away with the “unknown” classification, or at least shrink it
to a manageable size.
People are taking control of their health and their data. Wearables
are giving people more and more access to information about their
health. If we don’t find a way to access and utilize that information,
patients and health consumers will cut us out of the system.
Our current drug discovery methods aren’t going to cut it in an
exponential world. We need personalized medicine; a Match.com for
drugs.
DAY
TWO
SAN DIEGO / 10 NOVEMBER 2015
OMICS, BIOTECH & BEYOND • BODY COMPUTING & COACHING • CROSSING DISCIPLINES
CREATING A PANDEMIC OF HEALTH: HOW CAN WE ACHIEVE MASSIVE INDIVIDUALIZATION?
FROM EXPONENTIAL DATA TO INSIGHTS • SCALING INNOVATION
ENABLING THE DISABLED & THE FUTURE OF BRAIN/COMPUTER INTERFACE
11
OMICS, BIOTECH & BEYOND
SESSION
3
Moira Gunn PhD
Host, NPR’s BioTech Nation
Robert C. Green MD MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Director, Genomes2People
Esteban Burchard MD MPH
Professor, UCSF Departments of Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences & Medicine
Joel Dudley PhD
Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Jamie Metzl
Chief Strategy Officer, ORIG3N, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council
“What things are we
missing because we’re
focusing on
the short term?”
“The next step of
precision medicine is
precision wellness”
--Joel Dudley PhD
While a great deal of medicine is focused on the “what”, it’s also
important to ask “why”. Why are we doing what we do? What’s
the purpose of all these technologies? We need to be having
open, responsible, global conversations about the implications of
applied exponential technologies. Refusing to talk about potential
downsides of emerging technologies only sets us up for disaster.
Likewise, refusing to talk about the role race, gender, and other
factors play in medicine is not only immoral, it’s bad science.
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Our genes affect our response to drugs and our susceptibility to
disease, and since, as Dr Esteban Burchard reminds us, “we are all
rescue dogs”. Widening the pool of clinical trial participants is in
everybody’s best interest.
Ask yourself if you’re working on the right problem. If you’re
increasing the lifespan without increasing the wellspan, how much
does it really matter? Be bold. Consider context and ponder the
ethical implications of your work, and don’t let that make you afraid.
“If you don’t find yourself
stripped down in the
backyard of a total stranger
(metaphorically speaking),
then you aren’t playing”
--Moira Gunn PhD
“I’m an academic as well
as a journalist, so first I
want to tell you what, then
I want to tell you why.”
--Moira Gunn PhD
“Geneticists are one of the only researchers
who are afraid of their own data.
We need to confront this head on”
--Robert C. Green MD MPH
“It’s an era where patients have more access to information.
That’s good. It raises expectations and empowers patients.”
-- Jamie Metzl
“Is precision medicine socially precise?”
--Esteban Burchard MD MPH
13
DIGITAL HEALTH, BODY COMPUTING
& COACHING
SESSION
4
Aenor Sawyer MD
Clinical Professor, UCSF Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
Julia Hu
Co-Founder & CEO, LARK
Robert Bober MD
Director of Nuclear Cardiology, Ochsner Heart & Vascular Institute
As patients and consumers seek health solutions that interface
with their lives, we need to focus on interoperability; gathering
the many streams of data coming from multiple unconnected
sources and interpreting them in a way that users can
understand and act on. Health care has expanded outside the
traditional clinic and the physical location has become less
important than the convenience of how users access services.
A patient’s social support system has as much, if not more
to do with their recovery and quality of life as their doctor or
prescribed medications. While we can’t as yet create social
networks from nothing, we can create programs and apps that
provide support for the unsupported and virtual spaces where
isolated patients can begin to build their own social systems.
“I want to put a
personal health team in
everyone’s pocket”
“Companies like Apple
and Google are bringing
together your data, so
you don’t have to look at
one stream per silo.”
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“The future is wearables that interface
in real time with medical technology.
The clinic will become acute care only.”
“Remember that your
customers deserve
health, understanding
and love.”
--Robert Bober MD
--Julia Hu
CROSSING DISCIPLINES
SESSION
5
Lucien Engelen
Director REshape Center, Radboud University Medical Center
Paul Epping
Partner, Philips Healthcare Transformation Services
Alex Jadad MD
Founder, Center for Global eHealth Innovation
We hold grand and important goals addressing
humanity-level health advances – as well we should – but
it’s important that we not lose sight of the health of the
individual. In order to do this, we must consider health,
not as the absence of disease, but as the ability to adapt
and self-manage and not lose sight of the fact that health
and medicine are not the same thing. Our aim should
be to put individuals back in charge of their of their
own health, provide clinical advocacy, and allow selfdetermination whenever possible.
Health care needs to be a community: an ecosystem
instead of an ego system and data needs to escape it’s
many, separate buckets, so that we can analyze the big
picture, not just a tiny piece. When clinicians step out
of their narrow disciplines and work where differing
fields converge, that’s when medicine moves forward.
When patients connect, share data, and create support
networks, that’s how health is created.
“What if, instead of
islands cut off from
each other,
we functioned like
an engine, where
all the parts
work together”
“Ask yourself,
‘how do I become
obsolete?’”
--Lucien Engelen
“Imagine that 7 billion people could enjoy a happy life until their last breath”
“The pandemic of health is near”
--Alex Jadad MD
15
FROM EXPONENTIAL DATA TO
INSIGHTS
SESSION
6
Jack Kreindler MD
Co founder, Sentrian Remote Patient Intelligence
John Stevens MD
CEO, Heartflow
Neil Jordan
VP of Global Health, Microsoft
Dan Gordon PhD
Executive Consultant, IBM Global Healthcare, Insurance and Life Sciences Center of Competence; Founding Board Chair, Colleaga.Org
If we use data correctly, we can transform the options people have
today. Medicine can be a closed community and language can be
difficult for out patients to understand. A lack of understanding
leads to a lack of trust, and without trust, we will never create an
environment in which individuals take active control of their own
health. Technology needs an intuitive interface and a feature set
important to it’s primary user group. No matter how advanced a
technology is, it won’t be revolutionary if no one uses it.
IBM Watson started out as a Jeopardy champion, which may not
seem so impressive on the surface, but when you look deeper, you’ll
realize that means “he” has mastered voice recognition, reading
comprehension, punning, and the use of a mechanical finger.
Watson can run clinical trials, practice law, and answer the phone
in call centers around the world. This is significant because as Dan
Gordon shared, “people aren’t using Watson to replace people,
they’re using him to augment them.”
“The triple aim of health care: Improve clinical
outcomes, improve patient experience,
reduce the cost of care.”
--John Stevens, MD
“Technology needs to put people first”
--Neil Jordan
16
“If we use data
correctly, we can
transform the options
people have today”
--Jack Kreindler MD
“Darth Vader: Massive internal polytrauma, quadriplegia, 100%
burns, anger issues, and really bad asthma. But with the help of
machine learning, biosensors, and robotics, he lived a full life and
almost ruled the galaxy.”
--Jack Kreindler MD
“I don’t know where Watson is going to be on
the singularity curve, but where there’s more
information than it’s humanly possible to
read, he’s jolly useful”
--Dan Gordon PhD
17
SCALING INNOVATION
SESSION
7
John Mattison MD
Assistant Medical Director & Chief Medical Information Officer, Kaiser Permanente
Mina Hsiang
Health Data Advisor, The White House US Digital Service & Office of Science and Technology Policy
Thomas Graham MD
Chief Innovation Officer, Cleveland Clinic
Tony Young PhD FRCS
National Clinical Director, Innovation at NHS England
Patrick Littlefield
Director, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Center for Innovation
“Big data is a reverse Big Bang; all data is converging” --John Mattison MD
In order to bring these massive amounts of data into focus, we need
to go big. It’s time to start creating “plecosystems”, multi-platform
ecosystems, to manage and interpret the data coming in from
intersecting fields. We need the big institutions to help us out here.
The US government is the biggest health care provider in the world;
the NHS is the longest enduring. Both are throwing their weight behind
advancing health care technology, but learning how to effectively
innovate at this scale is an ongoing process. It’s taken Kaiser 45 years to
implement Sidney Garfield’s vision of an integrated health system, and
there’s still a long way to go. We’re moving digital with everything in the
plecosystem and from there, we can take it exponential. The US Federal
government has declared all federal data to be public domain. The data
is out there, we just need to harness it.
“In order to understand big data, we need
interdisciplinary teams to communicate the results”
--John Mattison MD
“When you can put geographic proximity and cultural
alignment together, you can create a space that
advances innovation”
--Thomas Graham MD
18
Converting massive amounts of data
into useable technology, we need to
go small. Innovation on the grand
scale is important, but we cannot
afford to lose individual innovators
working on projects for themselves
and their communities. We need to
support “napkin level” designs. We
have the ability to provide data to an
unprecedented number of people. If
we enable a medical maker movement,
we’ll find solutions in places the medical
community never thought to look. The
plecosystem is vast and tiny; we must
provide opportunity at all levels in our
quest to create a new world of health.
“We have a model of
care built around acute
illnesses. That made
sense 60 years ago.”
“Health care is not
driven by what works;
it’s driven by what
services are paid for.
We are significantly
moving the market
to a more rational
place.”
--Mina Hsiang
“Personalized medicine is going to
change everything. Over the next
5-10 years . . . the doctor will no longer
be the gatekeeper.”
--Tony Young PhD FRCS
--Tony Young PhD FRCS
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ENABLING THE DISABLED &
THE FUTURE OF
BRAIN / COMPUTER INTERFACE
SESSION
8
Leigh Hochberg MD PhD
Professor of Engineering, Brown University & Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School
“Think about people who have had injuries and
illness that leave them unable to move. What
if we could tap into the desire to move and use
that to move something? To tell them, ‘you’ll be
communicating tomorrow.’”
--Leigh Hochberg MD PhD
As an industry, brain/computer interfaces (BCI) are about to
take off. On the exponential chart, we’re right at the end of
the flat line. While we have a long way to go in realizing the
potential, we’ve made huge strides in progress.
In the early days, it started with monkeys and video games.
It’s fairly straightforward to teach a happy, healthy monkey
to play video games. You just need a joystick and the right
kind of fruit juice. After a long, long while, you disconnect
the joystick and let the monkey control the game with his
brain.
Now, we’re working with humans. We’ve restored a
paraplegic’s ability to draw with a Microsoft Paint type
program, helped a gentleman with ALS read his email,
enabled a woman paralyzed from the neck down to give
herself a drink for the first time in years, and watched a
woman with locked-in syndrome type out “there is hope”.
In the future, we want to see devices that don’t need an
expert technician at the helm, so people can access this
technology at home. We want less invasive and more
sustainable hardware for these interfaces.
We want smaller, faster, cheaper, more accessible.
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14
21
DAY
THREE
SAN DIEGO / 11 NOVEMBER 2015
THE MICROBIOME MAY REINVENT MEDICINE AS WE KNOW IT
FUTURE OF THE BRAIN & NEUROMEDICINE • GLOBAL HEALTH/HACKING HEALTH
THE FUTURE OF CLINICAL TRIALS, DIGICEUTICALS • DIGITAL TRIALS, BESPOKE THERAPIES
REGENERATIVE MEDICINE & LONGEVITY • UNMENTIONABLES, PATIENT & DOCTOR
INCLUDED • LEVERAGING LOW TECH & PIONEERING PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE
BRINGING INCENTIVES, BOLD THINKING & ABUNDANCE TO BIOMEDICINE
22
THE MICROBIOME MAY
REINVENT MEDICINE
AS WE KNOW IT
SESSION
9
Lee Stein JD
Trustee, XPRIZE Foundation
Paul Roben
Associate Vice Chancellor, Innovation & Technology Commercialization at University of California San Diego
“The gut is quite meaningful”
--Lee Stein JD
This is a wonderful time to be in microbiome research. We’ve only just
begun to understand the microbiome and its effect on human health. With
autoimmune diseases on the rise, there’s evidence to suggest that this may be
related to the effects of antibiotics on the microbiome. At the moment, we only
have enough data to show correlation, but it’s strong enough to dig down and
see if we can identify causation. What we can say is that the bugs in your gut
have an effect on all the regulatory systems in your body. This research has the
potential to move us from the antibiotic age into an age of bacterial therapy.
“The microbiome has the potential to change how
we view health and education” --Paul Roben
23
FUTURE OF THE BRAIN &
NEUROMEDICINE
SESSION
10
Divya Chander MD PhD
Anesthesiologist/Neuroscientist, Stanford University
Ariel Garten
CEO, InteraXon Inc.
Jamie Tyler PhD
CSO and Founder, Thync
Derek Herrera
CEO, Spinal Singularity
Arshya Vahabzadeh MD
Vice President of Health Strategy & Communications, Brain Power
Cori Lathan PhD
Founder and Chief Executive Officer AnthroTronix, Inc.
Jordan Amadio MD MBA
Co-Founder/Partner, NeuroLaunch & Resident Physician in Neurosurgery, Emory University
“We’re about 20 years from
rolling into the doctor’s office and
walking out”
“We want patients not to worry
about IF they’ll walk again, but
instead how long it will take”
--Derek Herrera
Currently, our primary methods of reading
the brain are two very old technologies: EEG
and FMRI. What we’re learning with them,
though is enough to make major advances.
Scientists are using brain scans to recreate
visual data and for the first time we can
quantify the effect of meditation and music
on the human brain. Our ability to read
and interpret the language of the brain is
improving by leaps and bounds.
24
“For any brain interface machine to work, it requires being able to
read the brain signals and then rewrite them.”
--Divya Chander MD PhD
Our ability to rewrite the brain, however, is in it’s infancy. Deep brain
stimulation and mechanical brain computer interfaces are massively
invasive, have significant side effects, and often provide only temporary
solutions. Currently these therapies are only for those who have exhausted
all other options. However, emerging fields like optogenetics have the
potential to revolutionize neuroscience and bring brain therapies into
the mainstream.
In the near future, we’re
going to see neuroscience
have a massive effect on
preventative care and
brain health. Right now,
primary care physicians do
very little to monitor and
improve brain health. Even
for those of us who show
no symptoms of mental
illness, prevention could be
key. And for those already
suffering, neuroscience and
the technologies emerging
around it promise huge
improvements in standard of
care and even the possibility
of a cure.
“Can we bring the startup culture we see coming out of Silicon Valley
to neuroscience?” -- Jordan Amadio MD MBA
“Technology offers the opportunity not only for a new kind of neuroscience, but a
way to take our brain health into our own hands.” --Ariel Garten
25
GLOBAL HEALTH/HACKING HEALTH
SESSION
11
Eric Rasmussen MD MDM FACP
CEO, Infinitum Humanitarian Systems
Jose Gomez-Marquez
Director, MIT Little Devices Lab
Manish Kothari PhD
President of SRI Ventures: VP, SRI International
Exponential technology gives us hope
for solutions to many of humanity’s
grand challenges. Infectious diseases
like chikungunya are increasing around
the globe, temperatures are rising, and
potable water is scarce. Even in the
developed world, disaster response is
limited. Resources are fragmented and
we have trouble pinpointing life in dense
rubble. Better sensors, mobile technology,
and robots all have parts to play in our
humanitarian future.
“What we need for disaster
preparedness: your help”
--Eric Rasmussen MD MDM FACP
“Medical technology is generally
designed for a black box; it’s not
designed for us to understand”
-- Jose Gomez-Marquez
“Zoonotic diseases go both ways,
and that implicates
the epidemiology”
--Eric Rasmussen MD MDM FACP
Much of medical technology is unhackable - in the
bad way. People are unable to access, modify, and
participate in health technology, so the innovation
is left to traditional medical companies who have
a limited point of view. When people get involved
in building their own technology, they illuminate
areas where they want help that we might not see.
Often we try to build Iron Man when we should be
building Spider Man. After all, Spider Man can get
dressed by himself.
“We need a home robot that is a partner as
you move along your life path”
26
“It’s all about dignity, empowerment,
freedom, and fun”
“Why are office technologies
making things more affordable
while medical technologies are
going in the other direction?”
--Manish Kothari PhD
-- Jose Gomez-Marquez
THE FUTURE OF CLINICAL TRIALS,
DIGICEUTICALS & BEYOND
SESSION
12
Komathi Stem
Strategic Innovation Leader, Genentech
Milind Kamkolkar
Global Head Next Gen Analytics at Novartis
Medicine has undergone radical transformation and yet clinical research has changed
very little. Clinical trials are now more complex to design, manage, and compensate.
In addition, fewer patients are enrolling in trials and retention rates are dropping.
Why? We’ve pinpointed three major factors: geography, awareness, and trust.
Technology offers solutions to all three issues. In addition, it gives us the ability
to expand research and improve results. We now live in a world where we can
understand what the patient is doing outside the clinic. We can bring the trial
to the patient and allow them insight into the process. We can improve not only
recruitment, but diversity. If we can learn how to parse a hashtag and interpret an
emoji, we’ll be in an even better position to hear what our patients are telling us.
“Empowered patients
are the right ingredient
to exponentially
improve clinical trials”
“There are plenty of
patients living in hope who
are willing to participate
if given a chance.”
--Komathi Stem
“If we truly aim to be
customer centric, we need
to realize that we are not
the only people in the
world with an opinion;
we need to shift toward
active listening”
--Milind Kamkolar
27
DIGITAL TRIALS, BESPOKE THERAPIES
SESSION
13
Donald Jones
Chief Digital Officer, Scripps Translational Science Institute
Scott Summit
Director of Technology, Bespoke Products and Design Director, 3D Systems
Eythor Bender
CEO, Unyq
Patients are taking control of their own care needs. This is changing everything
from the location of the clinic and the role of the primary care provider to
the manufacturing of casts and prosthetics. Digital manufacturing has been
making inroads in medicine for many years now.
One of the biggest benefits is that complexity is free and personalization is
cheap. This means that things not only fit better, but they can be beautiful.
The healing process doesn’t have to be painful; prosthetics don’t have to be
merely functional, and braces don’t have to be ugly.
“Medicine gets imposed on you; fashion is something
you have agency in.”
“[A customized prosthetic] leg is load bearing, beautiful,
stigma reducing, recyclable, and dishwasher safe.”
“The goal is not to improve the medicine; the medicine works.
The goal is to improve adherence”
--Scott Summit
“We’re giving a whole
new dimension to
wearing prosthetics.
For the last 13 years,
it’s been cookie cutter,
non-personalized
products. We’re getting
to the point where
people finally get
to be themselves.”
--Eythor Bender
28
“50% of people in the US
don’t have a primary care
physician. 50% of the
remaining can’t name a
doctor they saw in the
last two years.”
--Donald Jones
REGENERATIVE MEDICINE
& LONGEVITY
SESSION
14
Daniel Kraft MD
Chair of Medicine & Neuroscience, Singularity University
Brad Perkins MD MBA
Chief Medical Officer, Human Longevity Inc
Yaron Turpaz PhD
Chief Information Officer, Human Longevity Inc
Sequencing the human genome has become exponentially
faster and cheaper. Human Longevity, Inc has sequenced
over 10,000 genomes, looking for the key to extending human
life. Within the human genome lies the code to the diseases
we experience and the possibility of delivering personalized
medicine. By sequencing cancer tumors, we can design
treatments to specifically target each one. The secrets of
humanity are written in the genome, and we are almost
ready to read them.
Stem cells will play a significant role in human longevity. Once
we fully harness their capabilities, their ability to self renew
and differentiate downstream, all sorts of damaged cells will be
repaired and replaced from re-generated ones. From there, the
next step is to “ceuticalize” the cells. Perhaps in the future, we’ll
even see stem cells used in gene therapy, powering the cure
for genetic disorders.
“Innovation is often
driven by our
own needs”
“Longevity is the ability
to repair, regenerate,
and replace lost or
damaged parts”
--Daniel Kraft MD
“Your genome should be part of your daily health care.”
--Yaron Turpaz PhD
“We’re building the Google Earth of the body”
--Brad Perkins MD MBA
29
UNMENTIONABLES, PATIENT
& DOCTOR INCLUDED
SESSION
15
Alexandra Drane
Co-Founder, Chief Visionary Office & Chair of the Board of Eliza Corporation
Steven Keating
Doctoral Student & Researcher, MIT Media Lab
Steven Eisenberg MD
Chief Medical Officer and Co-founder, Workup
In reality, most of life happens between medical
visits. It’s asking a lot for patients to focus on their
health when they’re dealing with a daily case of
“life sucks”. When we provide tools for patients
to function in their reality, only then can we
realistically expect them to actively engage in their
health care.
It is maddening how little access patients have to
their own data. Lack of access actively discourages
patient engagement, which is the opposite of
what we strive for. Allowing patients to access and
share their data is good for them, for their support
system, and for medicine. The more data we can
gather and share, the faster we’ll advance. If a
mere .001% of Facebook’s users had access to their
data and agreed to share it, it would be the largest
medical study in history.
“The unmentionables:
sex, drugs, and a crappy boss”
“Expand your definition of health to include life.
When life goes wrong, health goes wrong.”
--Alexandra Drane
“Your selfies can save you”
“My doctors can see my genome,
my university colleagues can see my genome,
but I can’t.”
“ Illness starts with I;
wellness starts with we ”
--Steven Eisenberg MD
30
“I had awake brain surgery, and I taped it.
Watch this!”
--Steven Keating
SESSION
16
Leveraging Low Tech & Pioneering Preventative Medicine
Dean Ornish MD
Founder & Director, Preventive Medicine Research Institute & Clinical Professor, UCSF
Big data, machine learning, and a
wealth of emerging technologies
confirm just how effective low tech
solutions can be. Not only are they
often equally, if not more effective
than medication, they often prove
more sustainable, and very rarely
come with negative side effects. The
challenge is that they require more
engagement from both the patient
and the doctor. The patient must take
greater responsibility for their level
of health and illness with the doctor
providing both support and access
to support. Make it feel good; make
it fun; make it loving and supportive,
and it will be sustainable.
SESSION
17
“The sheer number of people
dying from lifestyle diseases
diverts resources from the
diseases that can only be
treated with medications”
“If all we are as doctors is a
collection of algorithms, then
we’ll be replaced by an iPhone”
--Dean Ornish MD
Bringing Incentives, Bold Thinking, Abundance to BioMedicine
Peter Diamandis MD
Co-Founder, Singularity University & CEO, XPrize
We don’t lack resources. We’re
surrounded by resources. What
we lack is the ability to harness
them. That’s where exponential
technology comes in. More
importantly, it’s where exponential
thinking comes in.
We evolved in a linear world,
and our way of thinking can
keep us trapped there. But we
are, in fact, living in a world of
exponential abundance. Learn to
think abundantly, and, as much
as possible, surround yourself
with others who think abundantly.
That’s how we change the world.
“There are two systems
that are going to be
crushed this decade:
health care and
education”
--Peter Diamandis MD
“There’s plenty of money
in health care;
it’s just being put
in the wrong places”
--Peter Diamandis MD
31
32
MEDy
AWARDS
THE MEDy AWARDS RECOGNIZE COMPANIES DESIGNING PRODUCTS AND CREATING
HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS THAT ARE INDUSTRY-CHANGING INNOVATIONS
“Healthcare is on the cusp of exciting changes as new technologies truly alter how medical care is
provided to patients. These innovations will solve challenges present in the current system.
The MEDy awards are presented to companies generating disruptive and game changing
solutions and driving innovation in the medical field.”
--Daniel Kraft MD, Exponential Medicine Conference Chair
33
DAY
FOUR
SAN DIEGO / 12 NOVEMBER 2015
EXPONENTIAL THINKING, A CONVERSATION WITH RAY KURZWEIL
AR/VR & VISIONING THE FUTURE OF MEDICAL EDUCATION
UNUSUAL INTERSECTIONS
CROWDSOURCING IN HEALTHCARE
ESSENTIAL PRACTICES FOR HEALTHCARE INNOVATION
34
EXPONENTIAL THINKING:
A CONVERSATION WITH
RAY KURZWEIL
SESSION
18
Ray Kurzweil
Director of Engineering, Google
Co-Founder & Chancellor of Singularity University
Radical life extension isn’t enough. We also need radical life expansion, otherwise progress is pointless. Right now, anyone with a
smartphone can access all of the world’s information with a few keystrokes. With our current technology developments, someday we’ll
be able to access all that information and more directly from our neocortex.
Some of this technology is closer than you think and some is further away, but all of it is coming. Human beings are different from any
other species in that not only do we create, we also use our power of creativity to expand our abilities beyond our limitations.
“The cutting edge
will always be
expensive, but very
close on its heels
are very high quality
open source options
that are free”
--Ray Kurzweil
“The same
technologies that
are going to extend
lifespans are also
going to increase
resources”
--Ray Kurzweil
35
AR/VR & VISIONING THE FUTURE OF
MEDICAL EDUCATION
SESSION
19
Rafael Grossmann MD FACS
Surgeon & Google Glass Pioneer
Shafi Ahmed PhD FRCS
Consultant Surgeon
David Metcalf PhD
Director of the Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab (METIL), UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training
Kevin Sneed PharmD
Senior Associate Vice President, University of South Florida
Dean, University of South Florida, College of Pharmacy
Telemedicine is well established,
technologically speaking. It just hasn’t
infiltrated the common practice yet.
When it does, it will revolutionize how
we practice. Telemedicine reduces
wait times and delivers care to where
in locations convenient to both
patients and caregivers. Why require
people to travel and wait when an
appointment doesn’t require touch?
Basic readings can be taken in the
patient’s environment of choice using
mobile or wearables and sent to the
care team upon request.
“A picture is worth a thousand words. A video is worth a thousand pictures”
-- Rafael Grossman MD FACS
We shouldn’t overlook simple
solutions that make a world of
difference. Something as basic as
adding automated patient checkin that sends an alert directly to
the clinician’s wearable device can
streamline service and reduce wait
times. No need to wait for more
advanced, complex technologies when
we can enact better, faster, cheaper
processes right now.
“Every 10 years, we pull off what Hollywood imagines. Big Hero 6 is coming.”
-- Rafael Grossman MD FACS
36
“Our students are moving ahead, whether we’re with them or not”
--David Metcalf PhD
Augmented and virtual reality also have the ability to alter how we teach and test.
Google Glass allows us to stream live surgeries to a greatly expanded audience - and
nobody has to stand in the back row. Students without access to expensive equipment
and medical facilities can practice complex procedures. Wearables have already far
outpaced our ability to make use of the data they produce. Just think how we can
redefine clinical trials when we finally catch up.
“Instead of waiting 90 days to
see if a diabetic medication is
working, we can know by day 14.”
--Kevin Sneed PharmD
“Combining 360 video, 3D and interactive content, any student can be at the bedside and view the operation through the
surgeon’s eyes. That’s how we make education exponential!” --Shafi Ahmed PhD FRCS
37
UNUSUAL INTERSECTIONS
SESSION
20
Gautam Gulati MD MBA MPH
Founder of the Unusual Group
Pritpal S Tamber MBChB
Founder, Creating Health Collaborative
“For every 1% the income gap
increases, the mortality rate in the
lower group increases 4%. The rich
get richer and the poor die sooner.
That’s a first world story.”
--Pritpal S Tamber MBChB
Our current healthcare system is
not only broken, it’s unsustainable.
Costs and mortality rates are rising
at the same time, and those costs
are more and more being borne by
individuals. We can’t just tinker with
the system; we need to dismantle
it and build a new one from the
ground up. We have the ability; we
have the technology; now we just
need the will. Commit first. Figure it
out later. It’s the only way.
“We have all the ingredients; it’s up to us to assemble these ingredients
in a way that makes them consumable for the end user”
--Gautam Gulati MD MBA MPH
“Treat the sick. Prevent disease. Create health.”
--Pritpal S Tamber MD
38
CROWDSOURCING IN HEALTHCARE
AND BEYOND
SESSION
21
Marcus Shingles
Partner, Deloitte Consulting Innovation
Jared Heyman
Founder & CEO, CrowdMed
Laurence Ainouz
Global Head, Digital Acceleration Lab at Novartis
We’ve talked a lot about big data and machine
learning this week, and while technology is going to
be an integral part of tackling the massive amount
of data available today, there’s another solution: a
massive number of people. The wisdom of the crowd
contains the answers to many of our most difficult
medical issues. By crowdsourcing difficult diagnoses,
we can bring the best, correct, culturally appropriate,
difficult-to-discover treatment to desperate patients
better, faster, and cheaper.
“What’s needed to save life is a bunch
of people who want to help.
Hopefully at least one on every street.”
--Laurence Ainouz
The new economy is being built on excess capability,
be it Uber using your car’s downtime or AirBnB
making use of your spare room. The smartest people
in the world don’t work for you; they’re out in the
crowd, and often, they’re willing give you some of
“What is the excess capability of your organization?”
--Marcus Shingles
their excess capability. In
the next few years, we’ll add
another three billion people
to the networked crowd.
What could we do with all that
capability and capacity? And
what are the second order
effects and benefits of a new
economy? Anywhere Uber
launches, the city sees a drop
in DUIs. What unintended
benefits can crowdsourcing
bring to the heath ecosystem?
“The truth is that no doctor,
no matter how brilliant, can
keep up with the massive
amounts of medical knowledge
available today.”
--Jared Heyman
“How do you leverage the genius of the crowd? We need to
because that’s where genius lives.” --Marcus Shingles
39
ESSENTIAL PRACTICES FOR
HEALTHCARE INNOVATION
SESSION
22
Larry Keeley
President, Co-Founder at Doblin Group
Director of Deloitte Consulting
Innovation isn’t a mystery and it isn’t magic. It’s a knowable, learnable,
teachable, quantifiable skill which you should be implementing in
your organization with the same care and metrics that you would any
other tool in your toolbox. Audit your organization; get a baseline, and
then refer back to it when assessing your progress. Keep in mind
that protocols matter. They keep airplanes in the sky and they keep
your corporate innovation on track. Focus in on a manageable
number of great ideas, and don’t be distracted by the rest. Strive to be
both bold and effective.
“Collectively, our job now is to
figure out how to think about
things in a really deep way
and act on them
in a really practical way”
“When the history of 21st century
business is written, it will be the
age in which business solutions
gave way to business ecosystems”
“The world is creating a steady
stream of old things, when
what we really need is
radically new things”
“All of the innovations that are
going to revolutionize medicine
are going to behave
as ecosystems.”
--Larry Keeley
40
Consider the coral reef. It is a self organizing, self optimizing system
with no center. Fish don’t have business meetings, but they sure do
get stuff done. Your organization should work the same way. Open
your data to smart people. Consider how any technology you’re using
or developing can connect to the ecosystem. If your idea can’t connect
with others, it probably isn’t a great idea. Frame your innovation in a
way that is consistent, systematic, connected, and measurable. This is
your chance to be at the vanguard of a new world. Take it.
HEALTHCARE
INNOVATION
LAB
PROMISING COMPANIES AND INNOVATIONS SET TO REVOLUTIONIZE THE PRACTICE
OF MEDICINE AND RADICALLY TRANSFORM THE BIOMEDICAL INDUSTRY
50 CUTTING-EDGE, EARLY-STAGE COMPANIES
41
CURATED THROUGH INVITATION, NOMINATION, AND APPLICATION
HANDS-ON LEARNING AND DEMONSTRATIONS
THANKS
GRATITUDE TO OUR PARTNERS, COLLABORATORS AND PARTICIPANTS
P LA T I N U M P A R T N E R O F T H E E X P O N E N T I A L C O N F E R E N C E S E R I E S
P LA T I N U M P A R T N E R S O F E X P O N E N T I A L M E D I C I N E
M A J O R PA RT N E R S OF EX P O N E N T I A L M E D I C I N E
E X P O N E N T I A L M E D I C I N E PA RT N E R S
43
PARTICIPANT COMMENTS
“Mind-expanding, futuristic, welcoming and fun”
-- Alistair Quinn, The University of Queensland
“I came to Exponential Medicine a little skeptical,
but left with my head exploding with thoughts,
ideas and inspirations, the result of an intriguing
collection of brilliant colleagues, aspirational startups,
engaging and diverse presenters organized
in a truly unique experience.”
-- Ed MacBean, Senior Manager Market Development
– Population Sequencing, Illumina Inc
“This is a dynamic and intellectually energizing experience.
It changes the way you view medicine and life in general.”
-- Farzad Massoudi, Medical Director,
Neuroscience and Spine Institute
“Just have to share what a beautiful
and long half-life xMed is having...
I am carrying the glow of all I learned and the
energy, vibrance, collaborative and feisty spirit of
the TOTALLY KICK A** xMed community you’ve created.
Now I know what all the fuss is about!!”
-- Alexandra Drane, Founder of ElizaCorp
“Stimulating and disruptive yet appropriate and real.”
-- Jared Heyman, CEO CrowdMed
“Game Changing experience designed
to trigger curiosity and the right questions
for those who want to create change.”
-- Nikolaus Weil, Managing Partner,
Alphabridge Capital
“Worth every dime we invested”
-- Chuck Divita, Guidewell CFO
44
JOIN US
OCT 8 - 11, 2016
SAN DIEGO / HOTEL DEL CORONADO
Singularity University (SU) is a benefit corporation headquartered at NASA’s research campus in
Silicon Valley. We provide educational programs, innovative partnerships and a startup accelerator
to help individuals, businesses, institutions, investors, NGOs and governments understand cuttingedge technologies, and how to utilize these technologies to positively impact billions of people.
Since our inception in 2008, SU has empowered individuals from more than 85 countries to
apply exponentially growing technologies, such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence and
neuroscience, to address humanity’s grand challenges: education, energy, environment, food,
health, poverty, security, space and water. In just six years, our alumni, partners and members have
generated more than 100 startups, and numerous patents and ideas to help advance this mission.
S I N G U LA R I T Y U N I V E R S I T Y F O U N D I N G C O R P O R A T E P A R T N E R S
46
GLOBAL GRAND CHALLENGES
The world needs an organization dedicated to addressing
serious global issues by fully embracing the power and capacity
of disruptive and exponentially growing technologies. Singularity
University was founded in 2008 by Peter Diamandis and Ray
Kurzweil to do just that.
ENVIRONMENT
Sustainable and equitable
stewardship of Earth’s
ecosystems for optimal
functioning both globally and
locally.
LEARNING
Access to information and
experiences that build
knowledge and skills for all
people at all stages of their
lives for personal fulfillment
and benefit to society.
GOVERNANCE
FOOD
Consumption of sufficient, safe
and nutritious food to maintain
healthy and active lives for all
people at all times.
SECURITY
Safety of all people from
physical and psychological
harm, including in virtual
worlds; and protection of
physical, financial, digital
systems.
Equitable participation of all people in
formal and societal governance in accordance
with principles of justice and individual
rights; free from discrimination and identitybased prejudices; and able to meet the needs
of an exponentially changing world.
Exponential technologies demonstrate continued accelerating
growth of capabilities—speed, efficiency, cost-effectiveness or
power. We apply these technologies to Global Grand Challenges
with a strong understanding of social, cultural, economic,
political and environmental factors.
ENERGY
Ample, accessible and sustainable
energy for the needs of humanity.
HEALTH
Optimal physical and mental
health, including access to
cost effective prevention, early
diagnosis, and personalized
therapy for individuals and
communities.
DISASTER RESILIENCE
Effective and efficient disaster risk reduction,
emergency response, and rehabilitation
that saves lives and livelihoods, minimizes
economic loss, and builds resilience both
globally and locally.
WATER
Ample and safe water for
consumption, sanitation, industry,
and recreation for all people at all
times.
SPACE
Safe and equitable use, and
stewardship of, space resources
and technologies for the benefit
of humanity and our future as a
multi-planetary species.
PROSPERITY
Equitable access to economic
and other opportunities for selffulfillment where all people are free
from poverty.
47
The Exponential Conference Series takes Singularity University’s unique vantage point and
focuses it upon the exponentially a
ccelerating technologies that are impacting individual
verticals such as finance, health & medicine, and manufacturing.
Learn more at exponential.singularityu.org
May 10 - 11, 2016
Boston
Westin Waterfront
June 6 - 7, 2016
NYC
Conrad Hotel
Aug 28 - 30, 2016
San Francisco
Hilton San Francisco Union Square
October 8 - 11, 2016
San Diego
Hotel del Coronado
ExponentialMedicine@SingularityU.org
@ExponentialMed #xMED
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SAN DIEGO / 8-11 OCTOBER 2016
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