Bass Connections Teams

MEDx has partnered with two Bass Connections project teams

CovIdentify Bass Connections Team 

Covidentify study logo

Background

In April 2020, Duke launched CovIdentify, to test the viability of using wearables to quickly identify individuals who may have contracted the coronavirus. The CovIdentify platform integrates information from widely used wearables with simple daily electronic self-reports on symptoms and social distancing, for up to 12 months. CovIdentify’s overarching objective is to implement existing digital biomarkers and establish new digital biomarkers to develop, validate and translate CovIdentify as a continuous screening tool. CovIdentify was funded by MEDx.

Project Description

This project team, Equity and Efficiency of Using Wearables Data for COVID-19 Monitoring, will improve and expand the CovIdentify study by designing a new database system suitable for large-scale data analysis and recruiting members from underserved populations to participate in the study. 

Full project details

Related Links

CovIdentify website
'CovIdentify' Adapts to Address a Changing Pandemic
'CovIdentify' Pits Smartphones and Wearable Tech Against the Coronavirus
Big Ideas Lab

Contact

Jessilyn Dunn, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
MEDx Investigator
jessilyn.dunn@duke.edu
(919) 668-9798

Ryan Shaw, Ph.D.
Associate Professor in the School of Nursing
ryan.shaw@duke.edu
(919) 684-9434

Smart Toilet Bass Connections Team

woman working in a lab

Background

The Duke Smart Toilet will enable the hands-free collection and packaging of human excreta to test and monitor wellness and disease. The Smart Toilet is a novel platform with the potential to transform healthcare as it will generate individualized biological data that can be used for early disease detection, surveillance for infectious disease and continuous personalized health and wellness monitoring through apps and digital health wearable devices. Last year's team was partially funded by MEDx.

Project Description

The 2020-2021 project team, Smart Toilet: A disruptive technology to improve health and wellness, will develop integrated inline sensors for real-time categorization of bowel movements and further leverage the Smart Toilet Sampling platform. 

This sensor-enabled Smart Sampling Toilet will enable the establishment of wellness baselines for individuals with deviations, triggering health interventions and specimen extraction for separate biochemical assays at specific time intervals with no user intervention nor privacy concerns associated with a camera in a bathroom.

To achieve these goals, team members will participate in three main activities, organized in distinct but interrelated thrusts:

  1. Engineering integration of sensors and data collection with fecal specimens
  2. Development of machine learning and algorithms for classification of bowel movements
  3. Development of a business strategy for the technology

Full project details

Related Links

Smart Toilet: A Disruptive Technology to Improve Health and Wellness (2020-2021)
Smart Toilet Website
Smart Toilet Saves Vital Health Data from Getting Flushed
Fecal Matters: Learning about health through waste
WaSH-AID
Researchers' New 'Smart Toilet' Helps Pull Health Info from Poop
Duke Researchers Working to Create 'Smart Toilet'

Contact

Geoff Ginsburg, M.D., Ph.D.
Director of the MEDx Initiative and the Center for Applied Genomics & Precision Medicine
Professor of Medicine
(919) 668-6210
geoffrey.ginsburg@duke.edu

Sonia Grego, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist and Global Field Testing Lead
(919) 660-5353
sonia.grego@duke.edu

Katelyn Sellgren, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
(919) 660-1353
katelyn.sellgren@duke.edu