An immersive reality company with ties to Edmonton is creating 3D maps to help surgeons plan before they cut — and next week, its co-founders hope to convince NASA scientists that this technology could be used in space.
Aris MD is among 10 companies shortlisted for NASA’s iTech Cycle I competition, a global event that will choose three entrepreneurial innovations that can make an impact on Earth as well as on future manned missions to Mars and the moon.
“This is kind of their best in show,” said CEO Chandra Devam, who will join her co-founder Scott Edgar in pitching their product to a panel of NASA technologists and other space industry leaders at the Mountain View, Calif., event.
“I would love to get top three,” Devam told CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM. “But to be a top 10, you’re already a winner.”
Devam and Edgar live in Edmonton but their growing company has staff in Silicon Valley as well as in Austin, Tex.
Aris MD’s software combines virtual or augmented reality with medicine to create three-dimensional surgical navigation tools by combining slides from MRIs, ultrasounds, CTs or other scans.
“It is like Google Maps for surgeons,” Devam said.
“Doctors are really cutting in blind so being able to go in there and do a pre-surgery is really valuable. Then during the surgery, they can follow the map — we can display those images over the body, giving the doctors essentially X-ray vision so they can see exactly where your lungs are or [where] your heart is.
“The third leading cause of death in the U.S. is medical error, so we’re really looking to cut down on that. Make the map, then follow it in the OR.”
Devam, who describes herself as the company’s “visionary,” has a business background but said the idea for the software came after a medical incident in which doctors nicked an artery while she was undergoing day surgery.
That’s when she learned that every human body has a slightly different interior makeup and that doctors make their best guess at where everything is located. Providing more visual information for doctors should reduce mistakes, she said.
“Any medical practitioner could use it,” she said. “Even remote surgeons could be using it, which makes sense for NASA.”
According to the NASA iTech website, the challenge looks for entrepreneurs who have created applications that could have uses in space. The competition is split into two cycles, dividing up areas such as artificial intelligence, robotic capabilities, augmented and virtual reality, energy storage, power efficient technologies and medical breakthroughs.
If selected as one of the top three at the iTech forum, Aris MD would receive mentorship to help develop its technology for market.
What else would it mean to be top three?
“Big contract sales. Massive growth,” Devam said.
“It’s getting, you know, their stamp of approval … . What better science stamp could you get than NASA?”