Star Trek fans in the medical field may be a pretty specific population to target, but doctor or not, you may find yourself excited about the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, whose winners were announced on April 12. The contest, which was five years in the making, takes medical diagnosis a step closer to Dr. Leonard McCoy's staple device.
Devices entered into the competition were required to have the capability to diagnose ten core diseases which include anemia, urinary tract infection, diabetes, and atrial fibrillation, as well as accurately measure blood pressure, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, temperature, and heart rate.
The teams Final Frontier Medical Devices and Dynamical Biomarkers succeeded in meeting the requirements and were both announced the winners, receiving $2.5 million and $1 million for their achievement, respectively.
Science Fiction To Reality
From science fiction, the Qualcomm-funded competition brought the futuristic device to reality. If you are not familiar with the Tricorder, it is a small handheld device that was originally used in the Star Trek series.
It is a multi-functional device that could sense, compute, and record data. Though it is also used to scan unfamiliar, surrounding areas, the medical Tricorder is used by the medical doctors of Starfleet to diagnose patients and collect vital information about an individual.
Though the contests winners' winning devices do not particularly look similar to the show's device, they do function just as accurately and fully.
DxtER, the first prize winners' submission to the contest, is designed to monitor health and diagnose illnesses from home. Using non-invasive sensors, DxtER collects data about its users' vital signs, biological functions, and chemistry to make quick, not to mention accurate, health assessments.
Future Use
The implications of the invention of these devices are quite huge for the medical industry. Diagnostic devices such as the entries to the XPRIZE enables people to envision a future where medical services need not always be in the presence of doctors, something that many do not have access to. What's more, this could also spark the innovation of more medical devices that could help accurately diagnose, prevent, and manage certain diseases.
More importantly, the device's creation is also a bold step forward to revolutionizing people's interaction with the healthcare system, as well as bringing decent healthcare to places where there is none.
In a tweet, XPRIZE was proud to announce the winners of the competition, boldly stating that we are 210 years ahead of the schedule in the creation of the Tricorder.
In @StarTrek, the #Tricorder first appeared in the 2230s. This means that we're about 210 years ahead of schedule: https://t.co/7jnAs3uD0l
— XPRIZE (@xprize) April 13, 2017
This is not the first time that innovations were made based on the devices in Star Trek, and it very likely will not be the last.
