Somewhat off our normal beat….but of interest.

Ardigen and The BioCollective are collaborating on early detection research for Parkinson’s Disease, based on a microbiome-based biomarker. Ardigen has developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Microbiome Translational Platform. The BioCollective has a bank of metagenomic and patient metadata generated from an unexpected source: Parkinson’s patients’ stool samples. Release

The BioCollective is headed by Martha Carlin, who came from well outside of healthcare and pulled together a research group to address her husband’s diagnosis. A visit to this website is worth an examination on how these samples are collected for microbiome extraction. An interesting twist is the marketing of a probiotic mix developed using their BioFlux metabolic model for ‘gut health’.

Ed Marx, the former CIO of the Cleveland Clinic, has written a new book, ‘Healthcare Digital Transformation: How Consumerism, Technology, and the Pandemic are Accelerating the Future’. It’s billed as a wake-up call for healthcare systems and hospitals under challenge by Big Retail, Big Pharma, and Big Tech. This Editor met Mr. Marx when he premiered his entertaining memoir, ‘Extraordinary Tales from a Rather Ordinary Guy’, a few years ago. On treatment for COVID patients, except for the very sickest, he advocates it being done from home. From the release: “When the pandemic hit, a lot of progressive organizations would send most of their Covid patients home with monitoring equipment hooked up to phones unless they needed a ventilator. It’s a lot cheaper than staying in the hospital.”