After Three Years of Intense Competition, the Largest Medical Challenge in Human History Reaches Its Final Showdown!

The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, the largest medical competition in human history with a total prize pool of $10 million, hosted by the XPRIZE Foundation and sponsored by the Qualcomm Foundation, announced on the morning of the 13th (Eastern Time) the final two teams selected from over 300 participating teams worldwide to compete in the finals, following a lengthy three-year competition process.

One of the teams is the “Dynamical Biomarkers Group,” led by Professor Peng Zhongkang, a Chinese-American expert from Harvard Medical School. Its members consist primarily of physicians and engineers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait (mainland China and Taiwan). In addition to bringing together experts from academia and the medical community, the Dynamical Biomarkers Group has partnered with innovative R&D personnel from HTC, a mobile phone manufacturer, to handle technology research and development integration, user interface design, and product development and manufacturing.

The “Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE” is a competition for the development of medical diagnostic systems, inspired by the concept from the “Star Trek” series. After the competition rules were announced in 2012, more than 300 teams from around the world registered to participate. Following intense multi-stage eliminations, only two teams remained to advance to the final round.

The Medical Tricorder system required by the competition must be capable of continuously recording five basic vital signs: blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, respiration, and blood oxygen saturation, as well as detecting 13 diseases or health conditions. The detection panel includes 10 items designated by the organizers (anemia, urinary tract infection, type 2 diabetes, atrial fibrillation, sleep apnea, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, otitis media, leukocytosis, and fully healthy status) and three self-selected detection items (chosen from a list of 10 options, including hypertension, melanoma, and herpes zoster).

Professor Peng Zhongkang, the team leader from Harvard, stated that beyond the aforementioned requirements for precise vital signs monitoring and disease detection, the competition organizers imposed two additional stringent criteria. First, as the users of the medical triage device are general consumers without a medical professional background, the system’s design—from hardware to user interface—must be extremely simple and easy to operate.

Furthermore, the total weight of the entire system must be less than 5 pounds (approximately 2.3 kilograms), meeting the modern technological standards of being “light, thin, short, and small.” Therefore, participating teams are required not only to possess expertise in developing multiple emerging biomedical engineering technologies and extensive clinical knowledge but also to have world-leading capabilities in user interface design and instrument manufacturing.

Dr. Liu Yanhui, a member of the Harvard team, stated, “For instance, one component of our system utilizes an ultra-lightweight single-lead ECG device. Leveraging our proprietary patented computational technology, it not only meets the requirement for monitoring a basic vital sign but also enables accurate diagnosis of two conditions: atrial fibrillation and sleep apnea. This achieves maximal functionality with minimal component weight.” Dr. Liu has since returned to China and founded Nanjing Fengsheng Yongkang Software Technology Co., Ltd., which is dedicated to promoting sleep health management in both medical and consumer markets, having established collaborations with numerous top-tier Grade 3A hospitals and Huawei.

Professor Peng Zhongkang stated, “Our team’s purpose in participating in this international competition is not to win a substantial cash prize, but rather to seize the opportunity to develop key technologies for mobile health. We believe that such a mobile healthcare device will provide high-quality medical services to people in China’s vast remote areas, thereby benefiting the public.” Indeed, the world is currently facing two major challenges: rising healthcare costs and limited access to medical services.

The current Western medical model, which is dominated by large hospitals, will be unable to address these two challenges. There is an urgent need to establish an effective healthcare model. Professor Peng stated, “If we can create a healthcare model that leverages high-tech mobile diagnostic devices and incorporates remote monitoring by cloud-based medical professionals, we can not only fully resolve the difficulties and high costs associated with accessing medical care in China, but also promote this model worldwide. This would represent a significant contribution of our Chinese culture, centered on benevolence, to the world.”

The Dynamic Biomarkers Team’s system has entered the final stage of the competition: large-scale patient testing at UC San Diego Health. The organizers are scheduled to announce the grand prize winner in the second quarter of 2017.