A New Era in Medical Technologies
When German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen found the X-ray in 1895, the New York Times announced the news to American readers by saying, “German allegedly discovered how-to photography the invisible.” Röntgen was actually experimenting to see the effects of electricity within the small pieces located in a glass tube. But when he saw that the electrons are crushing the glass and producing fluorescent light, he changed the experiment and located a black cartoon around the tube to see how light moves inside. As a result, he found a new kind of light that can move through a solid surface. He called this light “the X-ray.”
Most of the medical technologies are found when looking for something else. A decade before, nations and institutions invested in people like Röntgen to lead innovation in medical technologies. Röntgen changed eight universities and had to decline invitations from many to build his laboratory and start experimenting. Hundred years later, institutions are still investing in bright minds and leading innovators. However, the accumulation of vast sets of data caused innovation as we know it to take different roots. Data science is the third most desired job of 2020, according to the job search engine Glassdoor. Working with big piles of data, data scientists can contribute to innovation in medical technologies through the use of deep learning. They can develop software that makes the diagnoses of diseases quicker and cheaper.
It is now safe to say that big data will enable the future progress of medicine. In 2013 the amount of digital medical data in the world was estimated at 153 exabytes. This is such a massive amount that it is hard to grasp it. Think like this: only 5 exabytes is needed to store all the words ever spoken by human beings. Ok, so medical data is big. But more important, it gets bigger every year. 2020, of course, tops all expectations. Medical data in the world is projected to grow at 48% in 2020. With this much raw material in hand, data scientists today can contribute to medical technologies as much as healthcare practitioners.
2020 showed the whole world, in the lack of strong health institutions and infrastructure, everything else remains inefficient to ensure the future of humanity. As Algomedicus, we focus on improving the healthcare services of all sorts, with the help of artificial intelligence and deep learning mechanisms. One hundred twenty-five years after Röntgen, we few steps away from developing a deep learning mechanism that can detect 14 different lung diseases, including Covid-19, in 10 minutes after uploading Chest X-rays. As a living example, we firmly believe that data scientists work in the field can bring new revelations to the medical area that make the cost of healthcare managed more sustainably.
