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I've had the same idea for a long time, and I'd also like to see a charity start doing this. It's crazy that so many people are saying this is a bad idea. I thi

I've had the same idea for a long time, and I'd also like to see a charity start doing this. It's crazy that so many people are saying this is a bad idea. I think it has the potential to save millions of lives. I was very tempted to join an AI startup in a similar space, but I decided to turn down their offer because they were a for-profit company, and that just didn't feel right. The offer was also too low, but I would have probably joined if they were a non-profit.

mattkrause 7y ago
Not to be too snarky, but...you know about universities right? I can almost guarantee there's a university or research institute near you doing some kind of research that's trying to improve or understand human health via MRI.
- nathan_f77 7y ago
  I actually never considered working with universities. I'm not too sure what that would look like. My plan was to start a non-profit organization and hire some radiologists, AI experts, and software engineers. I would also need a lot of help from lawyers and healthcare experts to make sure we're complying with laws and regulations. Then I wanted to purchase a few second-hand MRI machines and start a pilot program somewhere. I would probably start in New Zealand (my home country), and then move to other countries with universal healthcare (Australia, Canada, UK.) Early detection of cancer should end up saving a lot of money (compared to treating cancer in the later stages), so in the future it should be possible to get government funding that covers the entire program. I'm not too interested in starting a for-profit company, but it's probably the only way to do something in the US. So I'd leave that to someone else. But yes, it definitely makes sense to work with a university or hospital. Maybe the Centre for Advanced MRI at Auckland University [1]. (P.S. This is just a project I would want to tackle if I ever sell a company and end up with a ton of money. There's no chance that I'll be doing something soon.) [1] https://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/en/faculty/camri.html https://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/en/faculty/camri.html
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    The thing you're describing is almost exactly a university medical center: a non-profit staffed with doctors and researchers running research projects. They also have the technical and administrative staff to run them properly. Most professors at a medical school don't lecture very much, but are instead responsible for running research programs like the one you're describing. They either do this on their own, or as part of bigger consortiums. I'm mostly interested in brain stuff, where there are some big imaging+analysis collaborations. The Human Connectome Project collected about 1200 subjects' MRIs, plus a bunch of related health data. The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initative is doing something similar, with a focus on neurodegeneration. I would imagine there are similar ones for the rest of the body. Most people start on these projects as grad students, coming from biomedical programs (Neuro, Bio, Psych), engineering, physics, CS, or even math, depending on exactly what you want to do. There are other career tracks though--some people get hired on as research assistants or staff programmers, either attached to large programs or as permanent staff at big universities or institutes. These positions are a little harder to find, especially since RA can mean anything from "will train" to "needs PhD + 5 years experience". They often pay a bit better (though not tech industry levels), but have a bit less freedom. The US actually funds a ton of biomedical research through the NIH (and NSF and DARPA), and is probably one of the better bets for running large, expensive studies.

mattkrause 7y ago

Not to be too snarky, but...you know about universities right? I can almost guarantee there's a university or research institute near you doing some kind of research that's trying to improve or understand human health via MRI.

nathan_f77 7y ago
I actually never considered working with universities. I'm not too sure what that would look like. My plan was to start a non-profit organization and hire some radiologists, AI experts, and software engineers. I would also need a lot of help from lawyers and healthcare experts to make sure we're complying with laws and regulations. Then I wanted to purchase a few second-hand MRI machines and start a pilot program somewhere. I would probably start in New Zealand (my home country), and then move to other countries with universal healthcare (Australia, Canada, UK.) Early detection of cancer should end up saving a lot of money (compared to treating cancer in the later stages), so in the future it should be possible to get government funding that covers the entire program. I'm not too interested in starting a for-profit company, but it's probably the only way to do something in the US. So I'd leave that to someone else. But yes, it definitely makes sense to work with a university or hospital. Maybe the Centre for Advanced MRI at Auckland University [1]. (P.S. This is just a project I would want to tackle if I ever sell a company and end up with a ton of money. There's no chance that I'll be doing something soon.) [1] https://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/en/faculty/camri.html https://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/en/faculty/camri.html
- mattkrause 7y ago
  The thing you're describing is almost exactly a university medical center: a non-profit staffed with doctors and researchers running research projects. They also have the technical and administrative staff to run them properly. Most professors at a medical school don't lecture very much, but are instead responsible for running research programs like the one you're describing. They either do this on their own, or as part of bigger consortiums. I'm mostly interested in brain stuff, where there are some big imaging+analysis collaborations. The Human Connectome Project collected about 1200 subjects' MRIs, plus a bunch of related health data. The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initative is doing something similar, with a focus on neurodegeneration. I would imagine there are similar ones for the rest of the body. Most people start on these projects as grad students, coming from biomedical programs (Neuro, Bio, Psych), engineering, physics, CS, or even math, depending on exactly what you want to do. There are other career tracks though--some people get hired on as research assistants or staff programmers, either attached to large programs or as permanent staff at big universities or institutes. These positions are a little harder to find, especially since RA can mean anything from "will train" to "needs PhD + 5 years experience". They often pay a bit better (though not tech industry levels), but have a bit less freedom. The US actually funds a ton of biomedical research through the NIH (and NSF and DARPA), and is probably one of the better bets for running large, expensive studies.