March 28 Media Roundup

Get up to speed with last week’s industry highlights from our Twitter and LinkedIn feed.

mHealth and Tech

• Creative uses of technology such as virtual reality, crowdsourcing data and 3D printing are empowering women to make an impact all over the world.
• CUNY and Cornell Tech are working with Verizon to launch a women-in-tech initiative. It will begin with an introductory computer science class that teaches the discipline as a skill that can be applied to other issues.
• Meet PPD ACT, the iPhone app trying to better understand some of the genetics behind postpartum depression.
• The role of CIOs is shifting, and more are shifting towards a bias for action or managing operations. Here’s how the role is expected to evolve.
• Apple released software aimed at helping medical professionals create apps for patients’ monitoring of their own conditions. The company expects new tools to provide digital doctors’ orders, monitor and track symptoms, and allow patients to upload reports.
• The tech industry mourned the loss of Andy Grove last week, the legendary CEO of Intel who built the brand to make the chip a household name.
• The New York Times writes about the growth of the fitness tracker market and how it may uncover valuable insights into our health and wellness.
• Startup Avalon AI is using machine learning to test patients for dementia and aims to predict the patient’s transition from mild cognitive impairment to dementia.
• Backed by Y Combinator, Perlstein Lab presented its latest platform aimed to help bio startups find cures for rare diseases.

Big Data

• The next big data challenge? Mental illness. The hope is that machine learning may be able to make sense of mental illness complexities to improve treatment decisions.

Life Sciences and Pharma

• Misdiagnosis of diabetes patients is a problem, but a new genetics-based diabetes test may solve the issue by measuring risk factors to better assess if patients have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes.
• New migraine medications are coming soon thanks to researchers identifying some of the genes that play a role in migraines.
• J&J is picking up its efforts to learn how to predict who will develop certain diseasesand find early therapies. Read up on its current projects under way.
• Harvard and Merck are teaming up to develop small-molecule treatments for leukemiaand other cancers.
• New FDA Commissioner Robert Califf discusses the future of food and drug safety, and some of his first priorities.