What You Should Know: - SURGE Therapeutics (SURGE) recently announced the completion of a $26 million Series A financing led by Camford Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Intuitive Ventures, Pitango HealthTech, 8VC, Alumni Ventures, and the Cancer Research Institute. - The funds will be used to accelerate the development of the SURGE™ intraoperative immunotherapy approach, expand the team, and initiate clinical trials for its injectable biodegradable hydrogel. Using
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Brain Health: The Next Frontier in the Fight Against Dementia
There are differing views on the value of cognitive screening of older adults in a primary care setting. Many providers point to the lack of disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer’s Dementia and related dementias (ADRD) as a reason to not universally screen older adults for cognitive deficits. If I don’t have anything to give my patients to get better, what’s the point in revealing they might be at risk of dementia, or that they have early disease? Is dementia a ‘normal’ or ‘expected’ part
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Seven Bridges, USP, Google Cloud to Build A Brazilian Reference Genome
What You Should Know: - Seven Bridges, a bioinformatics ecosystem provider, announced it is collaborating with the University of São Paulo (USP) and Google Cloud, as well as the Associação Genomas Brasil (Brazil Genome Association), to assist the DNA do Brasil (DNABr) project in building a reference genome that represents the genetic diversity of the Brazilian population. - The joint effort will advance unbiased precision medicine for underrepresented populations in Brazil through the
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Volpara Acquires Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Platform CRA Health for $18M
What You Should Know: - Volpara Health, an integrated breast care platform assisting in the delivery of personalized patient care has acquired breast cancer risk assessment platform CRA Health. - CRA Health, LLC, is a breast cancer risk assessment company spinoff from Massachusetts General Hospital — a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital. Today the company delivers more than two million assessments annually to women’s imaging clinics. - CRA software is cloud-based
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Cerner Leadership Changes, Other Key Executives Hires
Cerner announced some leadership changes promoting long-time associates Travis Dalton to Chief Client & Services Officer and Dan Devers to Chief Legal Counsel. After long, respected, meaningful careers at Cerner, John Peterzalek and Randy Sims will be departing. Cognoa, the leading pediatric behavioral health company developing diagnostic and therapeutic solutions for children living with autism and other behavioral health conditions appoints Eric B. Mosbrooker as
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Google Health Studies App Launches in Partnership with Harvard Medical School & Boston Children’s Hospital
What You Should Know: - Google announces the launch of its Google Health
Studies App with the first study focused on respiratory illness in partnership
with Harvard Medical School & Boston Children’s Hospital. - Google Health Studies aims to create opportunities for
more people to participate in health research. By contributing, you’ll
represent your community and start improving the future of health for everyone. To make it easier for leading research institutions to
connect
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Virtual Engagement During COVID Pushes Paradigm Shift for Physician Training and Patient Care
The dominant presence of COVID-19 has not meant the absence of cancer, ear infections, heart attacks, chronic pain, or other illnesses that need attention and care. Physicians have continued treatment for all types of maladies, and physician training has continued as well. But this treatment and this training look much different these days. Despite the challenges that came with major COVID shutdowns and changing requirements, the healthcare system and patients have been both creative and
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How Care Coordination Technology Addresses Social Isolation in Seniors
Senior isolation is a health risk that affects at least a quarter of seniors over 65. It has become recognized over the past decade as a risk factor for poor aging outcomes including cognitive decline, depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, impaired immune function, and even death. Physical limitations, lack of transportation, and inadequate health literacy, among other social determinants of health (SDOH), further impair access to medical and mental
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COVID-19 and Racial Disparities: Transforming the Health of Businesses
American businesses and their leadership are at a crossroads. COVID-19 has forced us all to re-evaluate how we work and live, while the current protest movements have placed a spotlight on the systemic injustices non-white workers face both in and out of the office. Given that communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, companies serious about doing right by their employees need to act decisively and clearly or risk becoming complicit in the racial and social
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Is Remote-Learning A Public Health Dilemma?
In 2014, pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom set out to better understand the student experience by sitting in on middle school classes. She sat. She sat some more. She then noticed that a day’s worth of sitting was affecting her ability to focus. She asked “how on Earth do these children tolerate sitting this long?” before spotting all the fidgety, distracted bodies – “well, the short answer is they don’t.” This phenomenon is rooted in the commonly ignored factor that students
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