They hope that their method will be used for post-approval surveillance of drugs that have already received FDA approval but still carry a risk of toxicity. For instance, one diabetes drug that was on the market was flagged by PrOCTOR and when it was investigated further, it did indeed reveal that it had been taken from the market in Europe.

As the global population ages, the number of cancer cases is going up. New cancer diagnoses are expected to rise by 70% in the next 2 decades, from 14 million to around 22 million, according to an estimate by the World Health Organization. Corporate giants like Google and IBM are already focusing on making breakthroughs in oncology, using advanced AI algorithms for early detection and personalized treatment of cancer. We used the CB Insights database to find equity-funded startups that are using artificial intelligence to fight cancer. California-based CureMetrix has developed an algorithm for image analysis, which is currently being tested to identify lung cancer in x-rays and for breast cancer detection in mammograms.

BRANFORD, Conn., Sept. 13, 2016 -- BioXcel, a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Connecticut, today announced that the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug Designation to BXCL101 for the treatment of Neurofibromatosis Type 2 (NF2), an orphan disease with significant unmet medical need. BXCL101 is the first and only systemic therapy being developed to eliminate existing lesions and prevent the formation of new lesions by targeting the molecular mechanism of NF2 pathophysiology. BXCL101 is a proprietary version of an approved drug, bortezomib, adapted for chronic use in NF2 patients with both a novel dosing regimen and delivery approach. NF2 is a rare disease associated with neurologic and ophthalmologic abnormalities caused by benign tumors of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. BXCL101 is the first drug candidate discovered using BioXcel's R&D Platform, to be granted orphan drug status by the FDA.

We won't have robot doctors for a long time, but the human doctors we have now are beginning to lean on specialized artificial intelligence to help save time. Google DeepMind just announced a partnership with University College London Hospital which will explore using artificial intelligence to treat patients with head and neck cancers. The goal is to develop tools to automatically identify cancerous cells for radiology machines. Currently, radiologists employ a manual process, called image segmentation, to take CT and MRI scans and use them to create a map of the patient's anatomy with clear guidelines of where to direct the radiation. Avoiding healthy areas of the head and neck requires that map to be extraordinarily detailed; typically it takes four hours to create.

To design the prosthetic Ferrell and a group of volunteers took measurements of Katelyn's arms, and used a design provided on the internet from the e-NABLE community, a global network of volunteers. Ferrell told The Huffington Post that the designs for Katelyn's prosthetic are publicly available, already tested and have been adopted by many users around the world. It is not a FDA-approved device, but the material used for 3D printing is a well-known, non-toxic plastic called polylactic acid. "[The prosthetic we built] is generally recognized as a beneficial alternative to more expensive professional prosthetics," Ferrell told HuffPost. The hand device that Ferrell and his team made is pink and purple, Katelyn's favorite colors, and includes fingers and a thumb that allow Katelyn to grasp objects. It is attached to Katelyn's arm by Velcro straps and is controlled by her elbow.

In 1997 a remarkable event caught everybody's attention - the then champion of the world Garry Kasparov lost a tournament to a supercomputer Deep Blue. It was called "a beginning of a new era of computers" by many and now it seems that time keeps justifying those loud statements... Being a sub-set of artificial intelligence, machine learning involves algorithms allowing computers to autonomously learn from input data. A fundamental distinction from "usual" software programs, such as Photoshop or, say, Excel, is that in machine learning computers don't have to be explicitly programmed but can change and improve their algorithms by themselves. The history of machine learning goes back to the 1950th. The first learning program was created by Arthur Samuel in 1952 and it was the game of checkers.

After spending more than a year on a waiting list for a functional prosthetic hand, a Texas girl's needs were met by her local public library-- which happens to have a 3-D printing lab. Katelyn Vincik, 5, was born with a left hand that wasn't fully formed, but hasn't let that difference slow her down, Click 2 Houston reported. "She's very determined, she does everything," her mother, Kimberly Vincik, told the news channel. "It's never held her back." But during her nightly prayers, Katelyn always asks when the doctors will fix her hand.

"Seven hundred years after glasses were invented there are still 2.5 billion people in the world with poor vision and no access to vision correction," says Hong Kong philanthropist James Chen. Chairman of his family's Nigeria-based manufacturing company, Wahum Group, Chen is funding a contest called the Clearly Vision Prize that will award a total of 250,000 to projects that improve eyesight, especially in poor countries. Thirty-six semifinalists were announced this week (the five winners will be awarded September 15). Among the contenders: 3D printed eyeglass frames, drones that deliver medical supplies, and several smartphone-based technologies. Some of the smartphones help nonexperts test vision, and one uses artificial intelligence to "see" for blind people. The Clearly Vision semifinalists represent just a sampling of the smartphone projects fighting vision loss, a growing field that is bringing critical care to remote regions far from hospitals and doctors offices.

Erik Birkeneder is an intellectual property attorney at Nixon Peabody focused on digital health and medical device companies. Artificial intelligence originally aspired to replace doctors. Researchers imagined robots that could ask you questions, run the answers through an algorithm that would learn with experience and tell whether you had the flu or a cold. However, those promises largely failed, as artificial intelligent algorithms were too rudimentary to perform those functions. Particularly tricky was the variability between people, which caused basic machine learning algorithms to miss the patterns.

The ortho giant's purchase of French surgical robotics firm Medtech could give competitor Mazor Robotics a run for its money, according to one analyst. Zimmer Biomet has officially entered the surgical robotics market with its acquisition of a majority of shares in the French firm Medtech, maker of a robotics platform for neurological and spine procedures. The Warsaw, IN-based company, a leader in the musculoskeletal space, announced July 18 that it had purchased almost 59% of shares in Medtech and also intends to mount an all-cash simplified tender offer to acquire the remaining shares. Zimmer Biomet will continue to operate Medtech out of its current headquarters in Montepellier, France, which will also serve as a "center of excellence" for Zimmer Biomet's surgical robotics development efforts, according to a joint press release from the companies. With the Medtech acquisition, Zimmer Biomet gains the Rosa platform, which is currently used in 20 hospitals in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East, according to the company's website.