Tricorder X Prize
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The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE was an inducement prize contest announced on May 10, 2011, sponsored by
Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...
Foundation. It officially launched on January 10, 2012. The $10 million prize is awarded for creating a mobile device that can "diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians". The name is taken from the tricorder device in ''
Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' which can be used to instantly diagnose ailments. The focus of the competition guidelines was towards clinical symptoms, versus accurate measurement of test values. Although no team successfully met all the requirements of the grand prize, the competition was concluded in April 2017 when the XPRIZE Foundation awarded reduced prizes to the strongest performing teams. For the first time at any XPRIZE, the leftover funds from the main prize purse were earmarked for further development, consumer testing, and commercialization of tricorder prototypes for the two finalists and four semi-finalist teams as part of the Post Prize Initiative.


Prize details

The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE originally offered a
US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
7 million grand prize,
US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
2 million second prize, and
US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
1 million third prize to the best among the finalists offering an automatic non-invasive health diagnostics system that meets the following requirements. The final contest rules deviated from a single portable device and allowed the contestants to utilize multiple devices (as a system), thus moving away from the concept of a Star Trek tricorder. This rule expansion allowed teams to utilize some existing off-the-shelf add-ons or modifications to meet the aims of the competition. *Weighs no more than 5 pounds (2.3 kg) *Able to autonomously diagnose 13 medical conditions (12 diseases and the 'absence of conditions'), including anemia, atrial fibrillation, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, leukocytosis, pneumonia,
otitis media Otitis media is a group of inflammatory diseases of the middle ear. One of the two main types is acute otitis media (AOM), an infection of rapid onset that usually presents with ear pain. In young children this may result in pulling at the ear, ...
, sleep apnea, and urinary tract infection . The contest rules focused more on diagnosis versus monitoring or treatment of medical conditions. *Able to continuously record and stream the 5 main vital signs:
blood pressure Blood pressure (BP) is the pressure of circulating blood against the walls of blood vessels. Most of this pressure results from the heart pumping blood through the circulatory system. When used without qualification, the term "blood pressure" r ...
, heart rate, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate and temperature. The name is taken from the tricorder device from the science fiction TV series ''
Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' which can be used to instantly diagnose ailments. The prize was initially announced by the X PRIZE Foundation on 10 May 2011 and subsequently launched on 10 January 2012 at CES 2012. Devices were sent to the University of California San Diego to be independently tested on patients during the winter and spring of 2015, and again in late 2016 at the
Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute UC San Diego Health is the academic health system of the University of California, San Diego in San Diego, California. It is the only academic health system serving San Diego and has one of only two adult Level I trauma centers in the region. In ...
(ACTRI) at UCSD.


Final round

The two teams to compete in consumer testing round: *Dynamical Biomarkers Group (Taiwan), Team led by
Chung-Kang Peng Chung-Kang Peng is the Director of the Center for Dynamical Biomarkers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School (BIDMC/HMS). Under his direction the Center for Dynamical Biomarkers researches fundamental theories and novel c ...
of the Harvard Medical School. *Final Frontier Medical Devices (USA) - Team led by brothers Basil and George Harris, founders of
Basil Leaf Technologies Basil (, ; ''Ocimum basilicum'' , also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is a tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide. In Western cuisine, the generic term "basil" refers to the variety also kno ...
.


Teams selected

The 10 teams to be selected to compete are: *Aezon (USA) - Student engineers team from Johns Hopkins University partnering with the Center for Bioengineering Innovation & Design. *Cloud DX (Canada) - Team from medical devices company
Cloud DX, Inc In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may compo ...
and led by company chief medical officer
Sonny Kohli Sonny is a common nickname and occasional given name. Often it can be a derivative of the English word "Son", a name derived from the Ancient Germanic element *sunn meaning "sun", a nickname derived from the Italian name Salvatore (especially in N ...
. *Danvantri (India) - Team from technology company
American Megatrends AMI (American Megatrends International LLC, formerly American Megatrends Inc.) is an international hardware and software company, specializing in PC hardware and firmware. The company was founded in 1985 by Pat Sarma and Subramonian Shankar. It ...
India and led by
Sridharan Mani Sreedharan is one of the names of the Hindu deity Vishnu. It is used as a male given name in India and the Indian diaspora. People with that name include: * N. Sreedharan, One of the chief organisers of Communist Party in Central Travancore and for ...
. *DMI (USA) - Team led by Eugene Y. Chan of the DNA Medicine Institute partnering with NASA, the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. *Dynamical Biomarkers Group (Taiwan) - Team led by
Chung-Kang Peng Chung-Kang Peng is the Director of the Center for Dynamical Biomarkers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School (BIDMC/HMS). Under his direction the Center for Dynamical Biomarkers researches fundamental theories and novel c ...
of the Harvard Medical School. *Final Frontier Medical Devices (USA) - Team led by brothers Basil and George Harris, founders of
Basil Leaf Technologies Basil (, ; ''Ocimum basilicum'' , also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is a tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide. In Western cuisine, the generic term "basil" refers to the variety also kno ...
. *
MESI The MESI protocol is an Invalidate-based cache coherence protocol, and is one of the most common protocols that support write-back caches. It is also known as the Illinois protocol (due to its development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-C ...
( Slovenia) - Team from medical device company
MESI The MESI protocol is an Invalidate-based cache coherence protocol, and is one of the most common protocols that support write-back caches. It is also known as the Illinois protocol (due to its development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-C ...
, partnering with
Jozef Stefan Institute Jozef or Józef is a Dutch, Breton, Polish and Slovak version of masculine given name Joseph. A selection of people with that name follows. For a comprehensive list see and .. * Józef Beck (1894–1944), Polish foreign minister in the 1930s * J ...
, D.Labs, and Gigodesign, led by Jakob Susteric. *SCANADU (USA) - Team from
SCANADU Scanadu was a Silicon Valley-based company that developed new medical devices from 2011 to 2016. In June 2020, after relaunching under the name inui Health, it was acquired by the Israeli healthcare startup Healthy.io. Scanadu was a Silic ...
, led by Walter De Brouwer. *SCANurse (UK) - Team from medical company SCANurse, led by Anil Vaidya. *Zensor (Ireland) - Team from medical company Intelesens, led by Jim McLaughlin.


Conclusion of the contest

In the end, no team met all the requirements needed to win the full prize purse for a minimally invasive health diagnostics system that could meet the guidelines of diagnosis set forth by the contest rules. In April 2017 X PRIZE Foundation made the following awards for a total of $3.7 million: * $2.6 million to Final Frontier Medical Devices as the highest performing team * $1 million to Dynamical Biomarkers Group for second place * $100,000 to Cloud DX as the first Bold Epic Innovator, "in recognition of exponential technological progress in the field of consumer-focused medical technologies, and potential for expanding access to healthcare when deployed at scale". The rest of the original $10 million prize purse was diverted to ongoing consumer testing to get tricorder technology into the hands of patients ($3.8 million) and adapting tricorders for use in hospitals in developing countries ($1.6 million).


See also

*
Medical tricorder A medical tricorder is a handheld portable scanning device to be used by consumers to self-diagnose medical conditions within seconds and take basic vital measurements. While the device is not yet on the mass market, there are numerous reports of ...
* Trimprob * Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy *
Nuclear quadrupole resonance Nuclear quadrupole resonance spectroscopy or NQR is a chemical analysis technique related to nuclear magnetic resonance ( NMR). Unlike NMR, NQR transitions of nuclei can be detected in the absence of a magnetic field, and for this reason NQR spectro ...


References


External links

{{Active inducement prize contests X Prizes Challenge awards