TOPx HHS Tech Sprint for AI and Invisible Illness

MAESTRO Health Innovators brings together clinical, AI, and patient-advocacy expertise in invisible illness: Tomer Tal, PhD (AI); Mady Hornig, MA, MD (Feinstein Institutes); Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong, PhD (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center); Tyler Myers, PhD (AI research, Complex Disorders Alliance); Paige Hansen Colburn (MIT); Amy Rochlin (CEO, Complex Disorders Alliance); and Michal Caspi Tal, PhD (MIT). Through the Complex Disorders Alliance, our work is shaped directly by the patient community.

People living with Long COVID, ME/CFS, POTS, and related conditions often wait years for a diagnosis because their illness is hard to measure. Objective measurement devices exist, from wearables to nailfold capillaroscopy, but there is no systematic way to know which measures actually separate these conditions from health, or where deploying a new device would help the most patients.

We’re designing an AI engine called “Measure it to Cure it” to connect clinicians’ & researchers’ clinical studies to communities and clinics with the greatest unmet need for objective microvascular assessment; to improve care for patients with these invisible illnesses. 

One of our biggest learnings from the MAESTRO clinical study was identifying altered microvasculature patterns through nailfold capillaroscopy in subsets of invisible illness patients. Patterns that may be linked to immune and vascular dysfunction. 

We’ve performed many interviews with patients, researchers, and clinicians. From these, we've heard from clinicians about the  standout need for point of care microvascular function analysis. Nailfold capillaroscopy is a practical, validated, noninvasive tool that is currently under-appreciated. For our invisible illness participants, seeing their own capillaries on nailfold capillaroscopy is often the first time they've felt seen & validated in the medical system.

We're excited to say that on September 14th, we launched CAPRIO, our newest clinical study at MIT. We aim to build the largest nailfold capillaroscopy dataset with participants able to join from their own homes. These data will be essential for further developing our platform.

Leveraging our enormous MAESTRO and CAPRIO clinical study datasets alongside U.S. open data, we're developing an AI platform that will identify the communities and clinics with the greatest unmet need for objective microvascular assessment. With this information, we can reach patients’ homes and get cutting edge care to the spaces where they are needed the most - Helping make the invisible visible.

Take a look at the videos and demos on nailfold capillaroscopy below!