4 ms·

one of the founders (Tanay) here - happy to answer any questions. we also put out a new trove of data here: https://athelas.com/publications https://athelas.com

one of the founders (Tanay) here - happy to answer any questions. we also put out a new trove of data here: https://athelas.com/publications https://athelas.com/publications

AndrewKemendo 9y ago
You guys definitely seem to be on the right track - especially with being open about your results in light of the whole Theranos debacle. I remember an article a few months ago describing your CV/ML based approach and think it's a great use case. Good luck.
jasode 9y ago
Can one device be shared by multiple people? What are the details behind $20/month? E.g. is the machine "rented"? Or is the $20 for consumables? Is it connected to the cloud? (In other words, is the machine-learning algorithm's "counting" happening in the device or are you uploading image data to a server for analysis?)
- ttandon 9y ago
  The $20/mo is for the device and the test strips per month, as such the device is rented. Each subscription comes with 10 test strips a month usable between different users!
evanb 9y ago
Isn't "athelas" Tolkien-inspired? The Tolkien estate isn't super friendly with regards to this kind of reference. Try to find out how much Palantîr paid for an agreement with them (my understanding is that it's a very large number), and ask if that really makes sense...
- icebraining 9y ago
  The Tolkien estate is full of shit, they have no leg to stand on. Names aren't copyrightable and the book certainly doesn't give them a trademark over these industries.
jforman 9y ago
Did you submit a 513(g) to get classified as (apparently) Class I Non-Exempt?
- ttandon 9y ago
  We're working under the 510k Class 1 and Class 2 framework
killjoywashere 9y ago
Hi, pathologist here. * How do you account for interstitial fluid expressed into the droplet? * Do you use the same flags as a CBC analyzer? * Have you tested blasts? * Have you tested leukostatic samples (very high white count: over 100k)? * Have you validated against platelet clumping? * Have you validated for basic sources of interference (lipemia, hemolysis, icterus). * Have you engaged Cerner? Epic? DrChrono? AllScripts? Other EMR providers? * Have you engaged a pathologist?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- healthenclave 9y ago
  Wow great to have a Pathologist in the Room. I think this device is super awesome and I was trying to come up with something similar a few years back. The primary concerns is that one of the first things I learnt in Med School is that capillary blood is way less reliable in compare to venous blood for something as important as CBC. Not sure how they are accounting for the issue that the sample they have isn't the best one to get started with. ps: killjoywashere how do I get in touch with you ? Am at Asingh [at] healthenclave.com
- ttandon 9y ago
  Great questions -The first line of defense against interstitial fluid is wiping away the first drop (commonly used protocol in most drop test). The inevitable remaining interstitial fluid chunk is then classified out by our image processing models, which have been trained to recognize differences in images based on debris/cell concentration. -We currently report the WBC, WBC Differential, Platelets, and RBC indices. The flags we're missing are secondary RBC metrics like MCH and RDW estimates but we have plans to roll these out soon as well. -Yes, we've run both bench and clinical testing on patients with north of 100k white blood cells - the image processing can segment out cell chunks in these crowded samples better than traditional flow cytometry. Not in the currently published studies, but some good data coming out about this soon. -We've run basic initial tests on platelet clumping (artificially induced in certain diluted samples), and present in clinical samples. Since our model looks at the boundaries of these platelet cells, we have a lot less trouble with this than flow cytometry/beckman and even human pathologists. Still, we're working to find more samples with clumping to define the limits of detection on this front. -We've done interference studies with Hemolysis, EDTA, not with lipemia and icetrus. These are on our list of clinical samples to source as well. -We've begun working with some of these EMR providers, the good thing is many of them have sandboxes to get setup in relatively quickly. The larger ones do have long, long-term engagement timelines. -We work with dozens of pathologists to help review results, train the system further, and in general go over good morphology practice. Has definitely been a core part of our strategy.
subcosmos 9y ago
As a former anemia patient and deep learning practitioner, I'm really rooting for you guys. This is a great approach.
- ttandon 9y ago
  Thank you!
notatoad 9y ago
did you purposely pick a name that sounds kind of like Theranos just to mess with people?
Balgair 9y ago
What are false-positive and false negative rates for Circulating Tumor Cells with your tech? Do you control for age and other bio-factors and how?
- ttandon 9y ago
  CTCs are a very early application in our tech and one that we're excited to continue working on. We have some strong sample share relationships with Stanford and sensitivity/stage/specificity testing is in its early stages right now. Will publish on the data page when more information
  - Balgair 9y ago
    Look at CU-Anschutz as well, CCTSI is very active in CTCs.

one of the founders (Tanay) here - happy to answer any questions. we also put out a new trove of data here: https://athelas.com/publications https://athelas.com/publications

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

You guys definitely seem to be on the right track - especially with being open about your results in light of the whole Theranos debacle. I remember an article a few months ago describing your CV/ML based approach and think it's a great use case. Good luck.

jasode 9y ago

Can one device be shared by multiple people? What are the details behind $20/month? E.g. is the machine "rented"? Or is the $20 for consumables? Is it connected to the cloud? (In other words, is the machine-learning algorithm's "counting" happening in the device or are you uploading image data to a server for analysis?)

ttandon 9y ago
The $20/mo is for the device and the test strips per month, as such the device is rented. Each subscription comes with 10 test strips a month usable between different users!

evanb 9y ago

Isn't "athelas" Tolkien-inspired? The Tolkien estate isn't super friendly with regards to this kind of reference. Try to find out how much Palantîr paid for an agreement with them (my understanding is that it's a very large number), and ask if that really makes sense...

icebraining 9y ago
The Tolkien estate is full of shit, they have no leg to stand on. Names aren't copyrightable and the book certainly doesn't give them a trademark over these industries.

jforman 9y ago

Did you submit a 513(g) to get classified as (apparently) Class I Non-Exempt?

ttandon 9y ago
We're working under the 510k Class 1 and Class 2 framework

killjoywashere 9y ago

Hi, pathologist here. * How do you account for interstitial fluid expressed into the droplet? * Do you use the same flags as a CBC analyzer? * Have you tested blasts? * Have you tested leukostatic samples (very high white count: over 100k)? * Have you validated against platelet clumping? * Have you validated for basic sources of interference (lipemia, hemolysis, icterus). * Have you engaged Cerner? Epic? DrChrono? AllScripts? Other EMR providers? * Have you engaged a pathologist?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
healthenclave 9y ago
Wow great to have a Pathologist in the Room. I think this device is super awesome and I was trying to come up with something similar a few years back. The primary concerns is that one of the first things I learnt in Med School is that capillary blood is way less reliable in compare to venous blood for something as important as CBC. Not sure how they are accounting for the issue that the sample they have isn't the best one to get started with. ps: killjoywashere how do I get in touch with you ? Am at Asingh [at] healthenclave.com
ttandon 9y ago
Great questions -The first line of defense against interstitial fluid is wiping away the first drop (commonly used protocol in most drop test). The inevitable remaining interstitial fluid chunk is then classified out by our image processing models, which have been trained to recognize differences in images based on debris/cell concentration. -We currently report the WBC, WBC Differential, Platelets, and RBC indices. The flags we're missing are secondary RBC metrics like MCH and RDW estimates but we have plans to roll these out soon as well. -Yes, we've run both bench and clinical testing on patients with north of 100k white blood cells - the image processing can segment out cell chunks in these crowded samples better than traditional flow cytometry. Not in the currently published studies, but some good data coming out about this soon. -We've run basic initial tests on platelet clumping (artificially induced in certain diluted samples), and present in clinical samples. Since our model looks at the boundaries of these platelet cells, we have a lot less trouble with this than flow cytometry/beckman and even human pathologists. Still, we're working to find more samples with clumping to define the limits of detection on this front. -We've done interference studies with Hemolysis, EDTA, not with lipemia and icetrus. These are on our list of clinical samples to source as well. -We've begun working with some of these EMR providers, the good thing is many of them have sandboxes to get setup in relatively quickly. The larger ones do have long, long-term engagement timelines. -We work with dozens of pathologists to help review results, train the system further, and in general go over good morphology practice. Has definitely been a core part of our strategy.

subcosmos 9y ago

As a former anemia patient and deep learning practitioner, I'm really rooting for you guys. This is a great approach.

ttandon 9y ago
Thank you!

notatoad 9y ago

did you purposely pick a name that sounds kind of like Theranos just to mess with people?

Balgair 9y ago

What are false-positive and false negative rates for Circulating Tumor Cells with your tech? Do you control for age and other bio-factors and how?

ttandon 9y ago
CTCs are a very early application in our tech and one that we're excited to continue working on. We have some strong sample share relationships with Stanford and sensitivity/stage/specificity testing is in its early stages right now. Will publish on the data page when more information
- Balgair 9y ago
  Look at CU-Anschutz as well, CCTSI is very active in CTCs.