• About
  • Article PDF
  • White Papers
  • Listening Tours​
  • Contact
  • Support Us
  • Advertising & Sponsorships
Monday, May 16, 2022
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
Times Of Entrepreneurship
Growth and Equity for a Changing World
Times Of Entrepreneurship
No Result
View All Result

Could We Test For Coronavirus In Sewer Systems, Tracking The Spread? MIT Entrepreneurs Have A Solution That Could Work

by Elizabeth MacBride
March 13, 2020
in Deep Tech, Women Entrepreneurs
Reading Time: 6 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Mariana Matus (l) and Newsha Ghaeli, founders of Biobot
Mariana Matus (l) and Newsha Ghaeli, founders of Biobot

As the deadly cracks in our public health system have become apparent in the last two weeks, I happened to be at MIT, part of a journalism residency at the Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship and Development. I had a bird’s eye view as entrepreneurs and innovators in MIT’s famous entrepreneurship ecosystem turned on a dime to work on solutions we need yesterday.

I’ve been dismayed, as I am sure many Americans have been, to see the public health system faltering, to hear tests were slow and faulty, to watch as public health officials tracked people down like old-fashioned gumshoe detectives. I listened as newscasters described infected people slipping through the cracks.

Today, tech companies have grown so skilled at sliding us into sales funnels we worry we’re a surveilled society. But we can’t figure who was at the airport in Seattle the day a traveler from China arrived, when lives are on the line?

To partly explain why we’re so vulnerable to coronavirus, follow the money. “In health care, digital innovation is linearly tied to insurance reimbursement,” said Stephanie Rampello, the founder of WellNested, a platform that connects families to personalized in-home postnatal care. I met her mid-week, over the phone.

A graduate of the Sloan School of Management, Rampello spent several years looking at health care innovation during a corporate career and as she launched her company. It’s a simple equation, she told me: Returns-minded investors haven’t wanted to fund innovation in public health, because there aren’t deep pockets to create a market. 

That could change now, of course.

Governments and philanthropies will likely step up. Companies, including Silicon Valley-based Genentech, report they’ve been approved to test. But testing capacity is just the beginning.

Entrepreneurs are accustomed to working in extreme uncertainty. Public health innovation is a particularly quiet and thankless task, not likely to grab headlines. “My goal now is to create antifragile humans and teams,” wrote Bill Aulet, managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.

The question now is how to find more of the innovators in the space (like Dave Alburty working in his lab in Missouri), and get them the resources and funding they need.

Here are the problems I found entrepreneurs working on at MIT:

Antiquated Notification Systems

Right now, in public health in the United States, the standard to notify people that they’ve been exposed to an infectious disease is for a public health official, after that detective work, to reach out, according to Dr. Anatole Sebastian Menon-Johansson, a Legatum fellow working on a company, SXT, that seeks to reinvent this system. 

There are obvious problems with the old-fashioned way of doing things: Forget forgetting who you’ve been in contact with. Some people might lie about who they’ve been in touch with. And lots of people, once notified, won’t bother to get tested, even when there are tests available. (Among them are the same people who think the virus and the moon landing were a hoax).

Menon-Johansson, a sexual and reproductive health attending physician at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, has an anonymous notification tool that also locates nearby testing facilities to steer people who have been exposed. It was developed to apply to sexually transmitted diseases (and has doubled the rate at which partners were seen and tested. More than two weeks ago Menon-Johansson showed public health officials in the UK how it could be adapted for coronavirus, and he’s now in discussions with the New York City Department of Public Health, he said.

A key problem with our infectious disease infrastructure, Menon-Johansson told me, is that it’s focused on information, not action. “Current public health responses focus on describing the epidemic,” he said. “We need to focus on the whole journey and telling people what to do.”

Individual Testing Is Too Slow

If there’s a fundamental issue in an epidemic, it might be that we’re always a step behind the pathogen. But what if you could design a system that monitors the spread without necessitating that people get tests? It could be an important early indicator of where the virus has arrived and how thoroughly it has taken hold in an individual community.

In fact, that system already exists, in a company called Biobot Analytics. Entrepreneurs Mariana Matus and Newsha Ghaeli founded the company. 

Their team successfully detected human viruses – herpes and HPV – in sewage, according to Ghaeli. Everybody poops and pees, and when we do, pathogens pass out of our bodies.

“There is more R&D required to look specifically for coronavirus. Internationally, wastewater-based epidemiology has been used to detect poliovirus outbreaks,” said Ghaeli by email. “In 2013, Israel measured poliovirus through their WBE program before local clinics reported any symptoms. In response to this, they targeted vaccination efforts that effectively contained the outbreak.”

Turned to the task, MIT, like other top universities, is a powerful innovation engine. Its alumni are among the founders of 30,000 currently active companies, employing 4.6 million people, with revenue of $1.9 trillion, a 2015 study found.

Biobot has deployed in seven cities across the United States fighting the opiod epidemic. “We are currently talking to folks in academia and government to see how best we can support COVID-19 responses with our technology,” said Ghaeli.

Alex Amouyel
Alex Amouyel, executive director at MIT Solve

Where’s The Money?

So where’s the money going to come from? You’d think the urgency of the situation and the obvious need would mean that money would flow from government and philanthropic sources, but that’s not a fait accompli. In the middle of last week, the White House invited tech leaders from big companies, including Google, Apple and Facebook, to talk about responses to the virus. That suggests a fundamental misunderstanding about where innovation comes from (entrepreneurs and small players), especially in the health care space, where the sensibility to handle complex ethics is also needed.

Rather, we ought to be looking for funding solutions that have developed systems to surface innovations from founders and bring them to market. In MIT, there are a handful, including the Legatum Center, the Martin Trust Center and MIT Solve, a marketplace for social innovation. It’s already launched a health security and pandemics challenge in response to coronavirus, to find teams from around the world working on innovations to address pandemics. The deadline to apply is June 18.

Executive Director Alex Amouyel has seen gaps in the funding available for companies that don’t fit the venture capital mindset of a fast-growing technology play. 

Hard technology – like a testing kit – just doesn’t fit.

“There are near-term opportunities in diagnostics and hygiene,” said Amouyel. “We could see things like affordable primary health care systems and more infrastructure.”

Founded in 2015, MIT Solve picks a total of 40 teams from around the world working on problems in big areas (the others are education, health, sustainability and economic prosperity), working with them over nine months to connect them to funding, networks and investors. It received nearly 1,400 applications from over 100 countries last year; among its standout graduates is Code Nation.

This article was corrected to remove the estimated number of teams being sought by MIT Solve for its pandemic challenge. There is no set number.

For more inspiring stories, insights and actionable funding opportunities, subscribe to Times of E’s weekly newsletter, www.timesofe.com/introduction.
Tags: Alex AmouyelAnatole Sebastian Menon-JohanssonBiobot AnalyticsinnovationLegatum CenterMariana MatusMIT-SolveNewsha GhaeliSXTTrust Center
Elizabeth MacBride

Elizabeth MacBride

Related Posts

Commentary: Women Now Face Pressure To Look Beautiful Everywhere They Go. Here’s How To Set Them Free.

Commentary: Women Now Face Pressure To Look Beautiful Everywhere They Go. Here’s How To Set Them Free.

by Shelley Hon
April 6, 2022
0

Shelley Hon (Photo Credit: Courtesy of Shelley Hon). Women have faced pressure to look beautiful since the beginning of time....

Black woman against a backdrop of West African spices

A West African Spice Company Comes into its Own as Flavors of Long-Overlooked Region Hit U.S. Tastebuds

by Nina Roberts
March 22, 2022
0

POKS Spices Founder Abena Foli. Photo illustration by Nina Roberts It’s becoming more common to see grains, chips, beverages, sauces...

A STEM Woman Needs a Stylish Steel Toe

A STEM Woman Needs a Stylish Steel Toe

by Nina Roberts
March 7, 2022
0

Anastasia Kraft photo illustration by Nina Roberts Female engineers working in manufacturing or construction go back and forth between office...

woman leaning against a brick wall in a white jacket

Editor’s Note: What the Kremlin wants

by Elizabeth Macbride
March 7, 2022
0

I’ve been watching the headlines about Ukraine. I’m horrified at the violence and death, I’m in awe of the courage,...

blonde woman in black

Advice for Women Raising Money for their Social Ventures

by Skyler Rossi
February 21, 2022
0

Melissa Bronfman Times of E reporter Skyler Rossi interviewed Marissa Bronfman on Jan. 19 about a new impact fund she’s...

woman leaning against a brick wall in a white jacket

Editor’s Note: How To See People

by Elizabeth Macbride
February 17, 2022
0

A note from our editor, Elizabeth MacBride: Nearly 20 years ago, I was working as the managing editor of Crains’...

Subscribe to Times of E’s Free Weekly Newsletter

Learn about the emerging ecosystem of diverse founders

Popular

  • Distribution of Realized U.S. Venture Outcome Over the Past Decade

    Venture Capital Returns Are More Skewed Than People Realize

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Take Your IRR With A Grain Of Salt. It’s A Vanity Metric

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Big Social Media Doesn’t Work So Well For Small Businesses. But the Market Is Shifting.

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • COVID-19: Lessons From Past Crises Point To A Long And Hopeful Road For Entrepreneurs

    51 shares
    Share 51 Tweet 0
  • Commentary: Women Now Face Pressure To Look Beautiful Everywhere They Go. Here’s How To Set Them Free.

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Recent

woman leaning against a brick wall in a white jacket

Editor’s Note: Times of E Is On A Summer Schedule

May 12, 2022
Weekly Newsletter: Abortion Scare Politics, Manufacturing Ethos And Most Fundable Companies

Weekly Newsletter: $200M Headed to Entrepreneurs, VCs’ Vanity, & Summer Vacation Plans

May 12, 2022
Take Your IRR With A Grain Of Salt. It’s A Vanity Metric

Take Your IRR With A Grain Of Salt. It’s A Vanity Metric

May 11, 2022

Recommended

  • Health
  • Climate
  • Deep Tech
  • Finance
  • Education
  • Women Entrepreneurs
  • Mentorship
manufacturing worker

Shortages Of Protective Gear Highlight Cracks In US Manufacturing Base: ‘It’s Like Dunkirk’

2 years ago
$10B Barrels Toward State Programs for Entrepreneurs. But Who Will Benefit?

Weekly Newsletter: Sexual Harassment, Chicken Pie And Saving The Family Winery

8 months ago
  • About
  • Partner
  • Bespoke Research
  • Listening Tours​
  • Contact
  • Support Us
  • Privacy Policy

(703-966-7357)

© 2020 Mondial Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 
Facebook Twitter Linkedin
No Result
View All Result
  • Research
  • Finance
  • Women Entrepreneurs
  • New Builders
  • Ecosystem
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Editor’s Note

© 2022 Mondial Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Free Download

Times of E Speaks with Jim McKelvey

Get exclusive insights on the future of entrepreneurship. 

Download Now

Support Times of E

Times of E covers the emerging ecosystem of diverse founders.

With your support of our journalism, you will receive our weekly newsletter and one of these resources for free: 

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?