Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 Innovation Discovery Grants

IDG logo

The Innovation Discovery Grants (IDG) program focuses on strategic scientific advancement with milestones geared towards mitigating risks for follow-on investment. While the program has existed for just four years, the thirty projects that have been awarded a combined $2 million, together have raised an additional $21 million to further their development. Roughly $12 million of this additional investment has come from private sources.  Fifteen patent applications have been filed and three have been awarded. Four start-up companies have been formed around these technologies with another five new companies in the process of forming.

The program has been a success.

The first two IDG rounds focused on supporting a broad range of technology types designed to address unmet clinical needs across the full clinical spectrum.  In 2018, the third IDG program focused on a specific type of technology: the advancement and opportunities of artificial intelligence, data science, cognitive computation, and machine learning. Each award provides up to $50,000. Over 120 applications were submitted in response to the AI-focused solicitation. They were reviewed by external representatives from industry and the venture capital community. The 22 strongest proposals were then presented and discussed in mid-April.

Throughout the initial reviews, and with the guidance of the panel review leadership, the review criteria assessed:

  • Potential impact on patient care and healthcare delivery
  • Probability of meeting the articulated milestones and achieving the endpoints described in the proposals
  • Likelihood of attracting follow-on support to further develop these cutting-edge technologies

And now, we are pleased to congratulate the winners of the 2018 Innovation Discovery Grants:

Kevin Elias, MD (BWH, Obstetrics and Gynecology) – A web-based neural network calculator for ovarian cancer screening using serum miRNA

Brandon Westover, MD, PhD (MGH, Neurology) – Artificial Intelligence Based Seizure Detection and Classification

George L. Mutter, MD (BWH, Pathology) – Augmented Digital Microscopy for diagnosis of endometrial neoplasia.

Jochen Lennerz, MD, PhD (MGH, Pathology) – Breast Cancer Scanning Initiative (BCSI): Predicting unnecessary surgeries in high-risk breast lesions

Jinsong Ouyang, PhD (MGH, Radiology) – Deep-learning Facilitated Lesion Detection in Medical Images

Jayashree Kalpathy-Cramer, PhD (MGH, Radiology) – DeepROP – a point-of-care system for diagnosis of plus disease in retinopathy of prematurity

Christian A. Webb, PhD (McLean, Psychiatry) – Development of a machine learning algorithm-guided approach to treatment selection for depressed patients.

Alexandra Golby, MD (BWH, Neurosurgery) – Machine Learning Optimized Intraoperative Multiplexed Quantitative Optical Image Guidance for Brain Tumor Surgery

Martin H. Teicher, MD, PhD (McLean, Psychiatry) – Poly-Exposure Risk Scores for Psychiatric Disorders

Phillip Jason White, PhD (BWH, Radiology) – The identification of intracranial hemorrhage using machine-learning analysis of sparse transcranial ultrasound signals

Bruno Madore, PhD (BWH, Radiology) – Ultrasound-based sensors for physiological monitoring, and how they can make MRI and PET/CT scanners work better

Peter F Dunn, MD (MGH, Anesthesia) – Using Deep Learning to Predict Next-Day Patient Discharges to Optimize Hospital Capacity Management

Most Recent Posts:

Blog Chen Molecule Unlocking Glaucoma image

Mass Eye and Ear Scientist Identifies Molecule Unlocking Glaucoma

Potential Cure May Impact Other Neurodegenerative Disease Therapies   There is no cure (yet). Glaucoma often robs…

Read More

First Brigham Ignite Awards of the Year Announced

The Two Projects Focus on Robotic AI-Guided Intubation and Gamma Delta T Cell Therapy for Solid Tumors…

Read More
Blog Barriers to Innovation image

‘Barriers to Innovation’ Survey Shows Improvement in Underrepresented Faculty’s Perception as Innovators

Findings inform educational programs like CILP, next slated for May 15   Progress is being made in…

Read More