Submitted
2020 Elevate Prize

Gene-RADAR Precision Mobile Testing

Team Leader
anita goel
About You and Your Work
Your bio:

Dr.  Anita Goel oversees all commercialization, strategic partnerships, product design, engineering, clinical trials, regulatory approvals and manufacturing of the company's proprietary breakthrough Gene-RADAR® diagnostics platform.  She has established a stellar track record of delivering on time and under budget for several multi-million dollar US Government, (DOD, DARPA, AFOSR, DTRA, DOE, DHHS, USAID) and Fortune 500 contracts. Dr. Goel and NBSDx have earned international acclaim for their pioneering achievements including 3 DARPA Breakthrough Awards, two USAID Grand Challenge Awards, NASA’s Galactic Challenge Award and the first X-Prize for Healthcare.

  • Mentored by Nobel Laureates, Dr. Goel holds a Ph.D. (Physics) & MD from Harvard-MIT, and a B.S. (Physics) from Stanford.  
  • Named by MIT Technology Review for  World’s “Top science/technology innovators” and by Scientific American"World's Most Influential Visionaries " 
  •  70 patents worldwide 
  • Nature, Scientific American publications
  • Advised National Academy of Sciences & Engineering, CIFAR, PCAST, NIH Review Boards, PepsiCo and Lockheed Martin
Project name:
Gene-RADAR Precision Mobile Testing
One-line project summary:
Gene-RADAR: Real-time nanoscale precision mobile testing to test anyone, anytime, anywhere
Present your project.
Gene-RADAR Precision Mobile Testing Is Key to Opening the Economy Safely

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed critical gaps in our current testing infrastructure. With currently available testing technologies, less than 5 percent of Americans have been tested so far.We need widespread community-based precision testing of hundreds of millions of people.  To restore public confidence, the testing technology must be accurate and precise; this means that there should be no false negatives and no false positives.

 I have spent the past few decades developing breakthrough technologies at the nexus of physics, biomedicine, and nanotechnology. With awards from   DARPA, DOD, DOE, NSF,  Nanobiosym  has demonstrated advanced capabilities to control molecular reactions at the nanoscale, thereby enabling faster and smaller, IOT-connected, precision-engineered diagnostic devices ( XPrize–winning Gene-RADAR technology). 

We  are bringing our Gene-RADAR precision testing services to  eventually billions of people.  

 

Submit a video.
What specific problem are you solving?

As featured in Scientific American this week, our Kendall Square based Company Nanobiosym has transformed our award-winning (DARPA, DOD, NSF, DOE, USAID, NASA, XPRIZE, MIT TR35) nanobiophysics research into an FDA approved ISO-13485 manufacture grade product platform called Gene-RADAR® for precision molecular testing services for a wide range of diseases starting with COVID-19, and expandable to flu and other common diseases.  The Gene-RADAR v1.0 platform was already FDA EUA certified for Zika and validated to show PCR gold standard accuracy with No False Positives or False Negatives in previous FDA clinical trials for Ebola and Zika. We have already built a COVID-19 'app' or assay on our Gene-RADAR platform.

 

Our X Prize-winning Gene-RADAR technology harnesses the latest tools of physics and nanotechnology to do faster, smaller, higher precision testing than the 40 year old PCR technology which relies solely on chemistry and molecular biology. The science of nanobiophysics provides an advancement/quantum leap in technology which enables increased mobility with real-time results while maintaining gold standard performance, but without the infrastructure, logistics, and overhead requirements of traditional centralized labs. 

 


What is your project?

What Google did for the information industry and wireless technology did for the telecommunications industry, Dr. Anita Goel, MD, PhD, and CEO of Nanobiosym Diagnostics, Inc., a world-renowned nanotechnology expert and visionary pioneer in the emerging field of nanobiophysics, wants to do for the current healthcare system—one she believes hampers access to care for more than 4 billion people around the globe in developing countries and rural, remote areas in industrialized countries including the U.S. In fact, Dr. Goel notes, nearly all of the 8 billion people on the planet will benefit from a more decentralized and mobilized healthcare delivery system. Have no doubt: In spite of the logistical, institutional, and bureaucratic challenges to carrying her mission through, it will happen.

Dr. Goel is, in a sense, entering the next phase of her unique journey with Gene-RADAR, a mobile diagnostic platform that can provide real-time access—to anyone, at anytime, and anywhere—to personalized information about their health and, with a bit of saliva or pinprick blood sample, quickly and effectively diagnose diseases such as COVID-19, HIV, Ebola, Zika, and other infectious diseases. All of this, with an eye toward squelching future pandemics, too, like the Avian Flu and SARS.  

Who does your project serve, and in what ways is the project impacting their lives?

What Google did for the information industry and wireless technology did for the telecommunications industry, Dr. Anita Goel, MD, PhD, and CEO of Nanobiosym Diagnostics, Inc., a world-renowned nanotechnology expert and visionary pioneer in the emerging field of nanobiophysics, wants to do for the current healthcare system—one she believes hampers access to care for more than 4 billion people around the globe in developing countries and rural, remote areas in industrialized countries including the U.S. In fact, Dr. Goel notes, nearly all of the 8 billion people on the planet will benefit from a more decentralized and mobilized healthcare delivery system. Have no doubt: In spite of the logistical, institutional, and bureaucratic challenges to carrying her mission through, it will happen.

We propose  to deploy, in 3 phases, our real-time mobile, nanoscale precision
 testing services to test anyone, anywhere, anytime. 
  

Phase I: Deploy & perform first 10K tests in critical clusters:                         
              • protect our elderly, nursing homes, healthcare workers


 Phase II: Perform 100K+ tests

        
        • at airports, hotels, cruise ships

        • Re-open our economy ; Restore travel and Trade  


 

Phase III: Build next-gen digital infrastructure to do 5M+ tests nationwide:                         
      • on-demand  anytime anywhere
         testing for all
         

 

Which dimension of The Elevate Prize does your project most closely address?
  • Elevating issues and their projects by building awareness and driving action to solve the most difficult problems of our world
Explain how your project relates to The Elevate Prize and your selected dimension.

We have developed Gene-RADAR- a mobile nanoscale precision testing platform that harnesses several decades of my own award-winning research in nanobiophysics. Gene Radar  an provide the world’s most precise and robust (end-to-end) precision testing, data gathering and real-time bio-surveillance services.

We are working fast to scale  Gene-RADAR precision testing services nationwide and globally.  

  • Successfully completed clinical trials on  Gene-RADAR platform for  Ebola and Zika  pandemics
  •  Our 3.5 lb Gene-RADAR  mobile device vs  400 lb PCR machines.
  •  ultra high precision testing  
  • real-time results
  • Gene-RADAR enables widespread decentralized community testing in  schools, workplaces, and homes, truly putting 'your health in your hands.'
How did you come up with your project?

Nanobiosym Story & Gene- RADAR: Convergence of Physics, Biology and Nanotechnology

Dr. Goel has been named by MIT’s Tech Review as one of the World’s “Top science & tech innovators” and by Scientific American as one of the World’s “TopMost Influential Biotech Visionaries.” She holds multiple patents and is winner of the first X Prize ever awarded for Healthcare and 3 Breakthrough DARPA Awards. She holds a Ph.D in Physics from Harvard, an MD from the Harvard-MIT HST, and a B.S. in Physics  from Stanford.


Anita is one of the scientific and technological pioneers focusing on fundamental scientific issues at the intersection of nano-technology and molecular biology. Her work in DNA/RNA polymerase biomotors represents a unique perspective on this machinery ... This research has immense implications for controlling signal transduction at the molecular scale that could potentially revolutionize the fields of pathogen sensing/detection...Anita’s research in being able to establish nano-scale control of these motors is seminal to achieving these goals in the future. If this indeed is the century of biology and biotechnology, as many leading scientific thinkers are predicting, Anita’s work is going to provide one of the key underpinnings for the coming revolution.                                                                                    - Fmr Program Manager DARPA 

Why are you passionate about your project?

Gene-RADAR, once implemented and executed, will be the realization of one of the many dreams Dr. Goel envisioned as a young girl growing up in rural Mississippi, where healthcare was scarce, if not non-existent. She watched her father, a prominent surgeon who previously worked in Massachusetts after emigrating with his wife from India, care for people who wouldn’t otherwise receive healthcare.

“My dad has always been an inspiration,” Dr. Goel says. “He is a visionary and a humanitarian—and he would take me, at the ripe old age of 6, to make rounds with him at the hospital.” Her father definitely made an indelible impression on his young daughter. By the time Dr. Goel was a teenager, she already had a passion for unifying physics, mathematics, and biomedicine—a passion that would lead her to be mentored by and work closely with leading Nobel Laureates first at Stanford and Harvard.


Why are you well-positioned to deliver this project?

Dr. Anita Goel, MD, PhD, Chairman and CEO Nanobiosym Diagnostics

  • Ph.D. in Physics - Harvard  
  • MD from the Harvard-MIT Joint Division of Health Sciences & Technology (HST)
  • B.S. in Physics – Stanford
    • Honors with Distinction
  • Nobel Laureate Mentors
  • Successfully achieved FDA EUA for the Gene-RADAR Zika test 
  • Successfully completed clinical trials for the EUA protocol provided by the FDA for a Gene-RADAR Ebola test
  • The clinical validation for both Ebola and Zika showed Gene-RADAR testing performed like the PCR testing gold standard machines in labs (99% accuracy over the dynamic range) 

Regulatory Track Record

 

Top Award Winner

  • 3 DARPA Breakthrough Awards
  • 2 USAID Grand Challenge Awards
  • NASA’s Galactic Challenge Award (w/ Elon Musk)
  • First ever X-Prize for Healthcare

 

Visionary Inventor

  • MIT Technology Review “World’s Top science and technology innovators”
  • Scientific American "World's Most Influential Visionaries in Biotech”

 

Intellectual Property

  • Dr. Goel has 70+ patents worldwide
  • Published in top scientific journals including Nature Nanotechnology, Scientific American publications

Won and Delivered on multi-million-dollar US Government Contracts

  • DARPA, DOD, AFOSR, DTRA,
  • NASA/CASIS
  • DOE, DHHS, USAID

Global Expert

  • Invited by Prime Minister Modi to build India’s first Nanobiosym Campus (~a 500 acre) Technology Park in Gujarat and to bring Gene-RADAR to build next gen digital healthcare infrastructure across India 
  • Featured at Saudi Crown Prince MBS’s 2019 FII Conference in Riyadh as 1 of the 12 “Next Big Things in Global Business”
  • Published Scientific American article on the future of Healthcare
  • How Nano biophysics can Stop Ebola and Other Global Pandemics: Forbes; Wired 
Provide an example of your ability to overcome adversity.

 Years ago, the ink was barely dry on her degrees when DARPA, a special arm of the U.S. military that funds high-risk, high-reward breakthrough ideas, chose her from a short list of the nation’s topmost scientists, professors, technology innovators, and entrepreneurs to fund her breakthrough research in nanobiophysics. She developed unique insights and novel technologies to harness the physics of molecular motors that read and write DNA and to precision control molecules. All of this is what led to her establishing both Nanobiosym and Gene-RADAR and other disruptive technologies to solve some of the world’s most urgent problems.

For her groundbreaking work, Dr. Goel received the first XPRIZE ever awarded for healthcare and, in addition to multiple DARPA awards, won funding from many prestigious organizations including NASA, DOD, DTRA, AFOSR, NSF, and USAid. But it won’t stop there. Do expect more from this scientific powerhouse. Gene-RADAR is but the beginning of the paradigm shift in healthcare that Dr. Goel is currently driving. Keep an eye on this all-in-one physicist, physician, and entrepreneur. Something profound is on the horizon—and it has her fingerprints all over it.

Describe a past experience that demonstrates your leadership ability.
How long have you been working on your project?
15 years to bring Nanobiophysics to FDA products
Where are you headquartered?
Cambridge, MA, USA
What type of organization is your project?
  • For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Solution Team:
anita goel
anita goel
Chairman and CEO