Multivariate Systems Inc. is a start-up medical device and data analytics company co-founded by Paradis, Vaze, Elliott and Halter.
The National Institutes of Health have awarded Prof. Jonathan Elliott, along with Prof. Ryan Halter of Multivariate Systems Inc., Dr. Norman Paradis of Dartmouth-Hitchcock and Prof. Vikrant Vaze of Thayer an STTR R41 COVID supplement—an opportunity to expand the aims of a current STTR Phase I award to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The awarded project entitled "A PORTABLE MULTI-MODAL OPTICO-IMPEDANCE SYTEM FOR EARLY WARNING OF PROGRESSION IN STABLE COVID-19 PATIENTS" will allow the researchers to take their exisiting Optico-impedance device and algorithm, and apply it to the detection of progressing COVID-19 disease. "An early alert to progression of COVID-19 should be an easier target [than ongoing hemorrhage, the target of the teams original grant], since an increase in extra-vascular lung water (EVLW) is one of the earliest detectable changes and these changes are more easily detected by impedance tomography than small changes in blood volume," explains Prof. Elliott.
The funds will allow the team to evaluate their device in COVID-positive patients to learn and test its diagnostic potential, which could help manage medical resources and monitor patients at home to reduce exposure of the virus to staff and other patients. "The goal is to use the device to enhance the monitoring and resource allocation of urgent care during the current, or future, pandemics where it is difficult to know how to manage patients with positive confirmed disease and some concerning symptoms that are not yet severe."
