WOW! This is really insightful. Google has been working on high level artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning algorithms to detect diseases. Can we now dub this "medtech"? This AI technology can locate breast cancer, diagnose diabetic retinopathy (eye disease) and, of course, opens the door to many more detection's. This is really big and Google is right on it.

(Bill Taylor/CEO)

"With the recent advances in artificial intelligence technology, Google has been working to apply a form of high-level AI computing known as deep learning to the field of medicine and health care.

Though further developments are underway, Google said on April 27 that it has successfully developed new deep learning algorithms that can detect and diagnose diabetic retinopathy, an eye disease which can lead to blindness, as well as locate breast cancer.

Lily Peng, product manager of the medical imaging team at Google Research, shared how the US tech giant is using deep learning to train machines to analyze medical images and automatically detect pathological cues, be it swollen blood vessels in the eye or cancerous tumors..

Based on the workings of the human brain, deep learning uses large artificial neural networks -- layers of interconnected nodes -- that rearrange themselves as new information comes in, allowing computers to self-learn without the need for human programming.

“Artificial neural networks have been around since the 1960s. But now with more powerful computing power, we can build more layers into the system to handle more complicated tasks with high accuracy,” Peng said.

“In deep learning, the feature engineering is handled by the computer itself. We don’t tell the networks what the feature is, but we give them lots of examples, and have the network itself determine what these features are on their own.”

On the medical front, Google has made significant progress on building an algorithm to read retinal scan images to discern signs of diabetic retinopathy, the fastest growing cause of preventable blindness in the world..."

Source: Theinvestor