Ready for Net Negative? Minimising Healthcare’s Contribution to Climate Change through Innovation

Spatial sequencing still seems too expensive to match the offer of subcellular resolution and usability of FISH-based technologies outside of the research lab – but with declining costs the value of spatial sequencing could be significant. We see many opportunities for companies to improve their technologies as they look to develop an industry-leading platform.
Diagnostic applications of spatial, multi-omic tissue analysis are emerging. Now we need new technologies to support the field of tissue pathology in making these insights available to clinicians caring for millions of patients.
Nerve stimulation therapies for chronic pain can be very successful. But patients and clinicians face day-to-day challenges in the delivery of therapy that call for greater personalisation. Adaptive stimulation paradigms based on neural sensing data could help to achieve this – and give us additional insights.
Much is to be gained from developing next-generation sample preparation techniques to keep up with progress in DNA sequencing technology.
Technology developments have given us increasingly powerful and portable biosensors that can fit seamlessly into our lives – for example, glucose monitoring for diabetics. Consumer trends show there is further appetite for new technologies that provide accurate, reliable, affordable, discrete, and truly long-term biosensing.
Mass manufacturing of affordable contact lenses has seen near-complete automation. But the quality control stages have so far been too challenging for end-to-end automation. Could a smart opto-robotic system undertake the multiple measurements now performed by human operators?
The pandemic has raised awareness of the cytokine storm and exposed the potential value of diagnostic tools for assessing the host cytokine immune response. These tools could make a difference not only in COVID-19 but also in other areas of healthcare.
Ultrasound can be used to charge and power even the smallest implants that are out of reach for inductive power transmission methods. Some implant developers have adopted this approach already, but challenges remain. How will we be able to take full advantage of ultrasound to power future implants?
Developers of digital health technologies are racing to innovate and improve healthcare. But do they always know enough about the data their platform will be delivering to healthcare professionals to build a digital health solution that will be successful?
The previous wave of innovation in the contact lens market focused on wearer comfort. Will the next wave of innovation focus on usability? Charlie Constable discusses possible avenues for innovation in the contact lens market.