By combining questions about a person’s health with data from smartwatch sensors, a new app developed by research available at Princeton University https://www.princeton.edu, can predict within minutes whether someone is infected with COVID-19.
This new diagnostic tool stems from research led by Niraj Jha, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Princeton. His team is developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology for COVID-19 detection, as well as being able to diagnose and monitor chronic conditions including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, diabetes, and sickle cell disease.
NeuTigers, a company founded to commercialize Professor Jha’s work, applied to FDA under the agency’s provision for ‘software as a medical device,” for clearance for the CovidDeep Product. The development of CovidDeep and foundational work behind the NeuTigers technology was funded by NSF.
The software integrates smartwatch sensor readings on heart rate, skin temperature, and galvanic skin response with blood pressure and oxygen saturation levels, as well as a questionnaire on COVID symptoms.
Jha’s research group at Princeton has long focused on adapting a type of AI called deep learning which is typically energy intensive enabled to function on low-power electronic devices such as phones and watches instead of centralized cloud computing centers. This approach, known as edge AI, has the added benefit of being able to help preserve users’ privacy and increase security.
As Jha explains, “Smart health care is just one application, so we are also applying it to cybersecurity and other internet of things applications. Similar to preventive medical interventions, machine learning models would be able to spot aberrant patterns and help fix software vulnerabilities before a cyber-attack occurs.”
The team including Professor Jha’s PhD students launched NeuTigers in 2018. As Jha said, “Smart healthcare with the help of edge AI was taking off, so it was an opportune moment for a startup in this area. Former Pharmaceutical Executive Adel Laoui had connections with angel investors, so NeuTigers ramped up very quickly.”
Go to https://engineering.princeton.edu/faulty/niraji-jha for more information.