This week I am talking to Ron Chiarello, PhD (@roncphd) CEO and founder of Alveo Technologies, bringing diagnostic testing into the home:
Everyone, Anytime, Everywhere
Ron started his career in physics where he was involved in low temperature technology and testing for contamination using high intensity x-rays. Like me he was influenced by the original Star Trek Series and in particular the Tricorder that ‘Bones’ used on his patients and how to get this into general use. Today we your car can hundred’s of sensors but our home might have two for us so we are missing data an opportunity
Alveo Technologies recently won the XPRIZE for their at-home rapid COVID-19 test that can be used for other types of viruses such as the flu, RSV and STDs and they are currently waiting on FDA approval. As Ron points out the importance of home based testing which creates accessibility that is self empowerment helping dispel the fear and uncertainty generated by the media headlines.
Listen in to find out how they managed to miniaturize the technology into a small cartridge with “a little bit of chemistry and heat” that is able to identify the RNA fingerprint for RSV (the number 1 killer of children under 5) and have adapted this platform to create an at home COVID test. The platform has additional uses that they have already started work on so expect to see more in this domain
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Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden
And today I’m delighted to be joined by Ron tiarella. He is the CEO and founder of our veio technologies. Ron, thanks for joining me today.
Ron Chiarello
A pleasure to be here. Dr. Nick. Thank you.
Nick van Terheyden
So as I do always with my guests, I think it’s really important to get the background, you have an interesting background. Tell us a little bit about your journey to this point as the founder and CEO of out Albania.
Yes, um, so I again, I come to the opportunity of at home diagnostic testing from a bit different perspective and a different angle. First of all, I’m a PhD physicist. And I had a long academic career at Argonne National Laboratory in Stanford University before becoming an entrepreneur. So really, you know, in our company, and in our product platform, we’ve taken quite, I think, a novel approach. And we are a technology company, I am a technologist that’s, you know, now playing and trying to help people in the biotech space.
Nick van Terheyden
So I got to ask, because those people that know me know that I’m a bit of a physics buff, and you know, that whole space, tell us just a little bit about the work that you did before you got into this space.
Yeah, so it was really a great career, I actually worked on a lot of fun projects, probably the biggest thing I did is I worked at the advanced photon source in the suburbs of Chicago. And we build a quarter mile diameter, X ray storage ring that we use for all kinds of experiments. Maybe the one that sort of most interesting in a way was I worked with a low temperature, aqueous geochemist. And we were studying environmental issues up at Hanford, Air Force Base. You know, years ago, the US government, military, you know, operations had buried, you know, munitions waste up there, close to the Columbia River. And those containers started leaking. And so there was a big effort to figure out, hey, you know, how did this material leaking from these containers interact with the soil, did it potentially have an opportunity to contaminate the Columbia River. So we used high intensity x rays to actually study the interaction of this waste material with the soil that is, you know, around the Columbia River up there. And I think we did really good work and won several awards. And maybe that was the most exciting and impactful thing that we did.
Nick van Terheyden
That’s really cool. I always love these sort of origin stories, because what I find almost always is that there’s some thread of that that plays through into future activities. So tell us a little bit about the journey into alveda. What What was the story there? And how did you end up getting into this organization and creating the company?
Well, okay, so it started when I was a young boy watching the original Star Trek television series. And, okay, thank you for that. And I saw, you know, the medical tricorder. And I’m thinking, Wow, that’s really cool. Except that it’s on some exotic faraway planet. And it’s, you know, being used, you know, by bones. And so, you know, I remember thinking literally, as a young person, we need that on earth, and everyone should have one. And so that really was sort of an inspiration for me, you know, all the technology and these kind of early shows. And then, of course, you know, I ended up you know, sort of making a detour, if you will, in becoming a physicist, but really, it’s about for, for me, and for what we’re doing at IDEO, it’s about bringing technology to, you know, applications, in healthcare for individuals, the democratization of medical technology, if you will, for example, I have a relatively new car. My car has over 200 sensors, I know everything about my car, brake pad levels, fluid levels, if there’s an object nearby proximity sensors, but when I go into my medicine cabinet in my bathroom, I have two sensors, right? I have a thermometer and a scale. And so really, what we’re doing is we want to bring as a group of technologists that all do, we want to bring technology closer to people and have it accessible and low cost and easy to use for as many people as possible.
Nick van Terheyden
I just love that you have a Star Trek origin story because I’m definitely a Trekkie, loved that whole sort of, you know, the potential that sort of inspired me as a kid The space program that was, you know, the closest thing to to that. And you know, now we’re seeing the sort of expansion of this. So Live long and prosper. I is like, I’m just very excited about that. So Aveo actually won the XPrize. I think it’s important for people to understand that’s a pretty big deal. Not just from a financial standpoint, but actually getting to that it was, it was originally the XPrize was the space program, innovation to get a spaceship up and down. We saw that, but they’ve expanded it. Tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah, thank you. It’s super exciting for me. And for our entire team to be named an XPrize, grand prize winner winner for rapid COVID testing. I will tell you, it is earned. It is merit based. We did hundreds and hundreds of tests that were performed by independent laboratories, there was, you know, a set of judges that are luminaries in the field. The genesis for the XPrize was really you know, Jeff Huber is connected to a great company Illumina, a great testing company in its own right. So really winning the XPrize is another validation point for our innovation, and our out of the box thinking if you will, on rapid testing for at home for consumers. And again, yes, there is a cash award that goes with it, that’s really a big boost. But there are other elements to you know, the XPrize is helping us with everything from regulatory approvals to to contacts and relationships for more capital investment into the company. So it really has a far reach for us. And we’re just, you know, pleased beyond belief to be named a winner.
Nick van Terheyden
Well, I just have to say, congratulations, I feel like XPrize is maybe Shark Tank for geeks in some respects. Yeah. It offers, you know, both the sort of geekiness that surrounds it, plus all of those connections that you describe, no tremendous program. And we’ve seen lots of successes out of it. And clearly you’re one of them. So tell us a little bit about the journey for the solution that you developed. And some of the, the the background to that, because it’s not easy. Yeah, people look at this and say, Oh, well, we’ve got, you know, we have COVID testing. Well, that’s actually a pretty big hill to climb, right?
Absolutely. And, you know, our test is, and like, you know, other companies and, you know, and universities and so forth that have been developing an RNA based test. So we really wanted to be able to have a true fingerprint for a given infectious disease. So we really started not with COVID Of course, you know, seven years ago when, you know, we first came up with the idea of an ad home RNA based test for infectious disease. We started with respiratory syncytial virus, which is not sort of as well known as it should be. It goes by RSV, but this this this disease, which is an acute respiratory virus, similar to the flu, and similar to COVID-19 is the number one killer of children under age five, what So, we really started with an at home test for that disease. And the reason is because like flu and like COVID-19 RSV needs to be diagnosed basically within 48 hours of either initial symptoms or onset of the disease in order for treatments to be effective, be those treatments be an antiviral, or be they be you know, self quarantine, and if you don’t, as we’ve seen with COVID the disease can extend to pretty significant you know, hospitalization Of course, you know death and in the case of young people they can get pneumonia, bronchitis croup, and while there, you know, is in the US, particularly European Union, high survival rates, if you have a severe case of RSV when you’re young, let’s just say you’re not going to become an Olympic swimmer, right, you’re going to be your your body will have to adjust to, you know, the impact of that disease on you. So it’s a very serious disease, these these things like flu like RSV, and of course, you know, COVID so we started there and have extended to build the platform to multiplex all of these diseases for at home use so that they can all be diagnosed in the comfort of your home. Going back to fast diagnosis for rapid treatment in safety and comfort of your home.
Nick van Terheyden
So, um, you know, just a quick point, I’ll tell you why we call it RSV. That’s because we struggle with the same pronunciation. So this is one instance where that abbreviation absolutely works for us. So, yeah, I, I think, you know, many folks are at least partially familiar with the process for testing, you’re looking for elements of these markers. Case for that particular virus. We hear a lot about PCR amplification, the need for laboratories and, you know, cycle times all of those things. Can you explain simply how a test like this that you’re describing works? In? You know, a home setting doesn’t require a laboratory? What What’s going on? What have you managed to do?
Yes, that’s a great question. And so again, as a physicist, I think of viruses and bacteria as pretty simple systems really. And end of the day, viruses are not so bad to measure I mean, they’re they’re kind of convenient a lot of ways and and here’s why. The the basic construct of the virus is it’s, let’s say RNA. And let’s use our co v twos example. Its RNA is encapsulated by a protective sheath of proteins, I think of it maybe as a, as a banana peel. So the first job is you got to get a sample of that virus, okay, so very common for COVID is to get a nasal sample, so you swab and you like using a swab to because it controls the amount of samples relatively clean sees you shallow nasal swab, now you have essentially mucus with a whole bunch of virus and if that person happens to be to be positive, so you, what we do is we take the swab and put it into a disposable cartridge. From there, the first job is to break open that capsule, that banana, that banana peel, and expose the RNA. Okay, so we do that with a little bit of chemistry and a little bit of heat inside this cartridge. Okay, so that’s job one. Great, now we have a bunch of RNA floating around. But typically, it’s not enough to measure. So then you have to do the amplification piece or the copying piece of that RNA you want. And this is sort of the almost the miracle of life, it’s a phenomenal achievement, that you can do this, inside these tiny cartridges. you replicate that original RNA, you copy it many, many times. And that’s actually what you’re measuring. If there is an original amount of RNA that you can copy, you see a signal from those copies, all those, you know, millions of copies of RNA that you’re you’re you’re fabricating, if you will, if there is no original RNA, then you won’t have any copies and you won’t have any signal, no signal, your negative signal your positive. So literally, it’s that simple. If that sounds simple to you. No, I
Nick van Terheyden
think that’s great. And you know, the wonders of modern science. For those of you just joining, I’m Dr. Nick the incrementalist today I’m talking to Ron TRL. He is the CEO and founder of Aveo technologies, we were just talking about the technology that they’ve managed to put into a home based device. For context, what’s the size? What does this look like?
So our product has three main components. It has an analyzer, which is about the size of an iPhone 10. It has disposable cartridge, which the size of a credit card, and then a swab, which is about it’s like a Q tip, but a little bit more sophisticated than a Q tip. And then we have a real time healthcare data application program that can run on any mobile device. So the kit is really simple. When eventually it’s approved and you get it at home, they’ll open a box, you’ll have these three parts the analyzer which is reusable many, many times the cartridge which you use once and then throw away in regular trash. And the same with the swab use it once and then throw away in the regular trash and all of your results and your interface to the telemedicine telehealth ecosystem is through your phone. So your results go from the analyzer to your phone. And then as a user, you have an option. Do I want to share them with a physician? Do I want to share them with the CDC and be part of the disease surveillance and disease tracking? Very important in this piece, not only is the diagnosis to get that correct, important, but to protect the information of the user is very, very important that cybersecurity component. So we’ve incorporated all of this in our B well platform.
Nick van Terheyden
So how how Is this helping to expand access? I know, this is one of your areas of passion. It’s the sort of approach of, you know, democratization of access, what is it about this that’s changing, you know, the accessibility for everybody.
It’s, it’s really self empowerment. And you know, there’s a lot of especially you and I both share, you know, our ideas, which are very similar about the media, there’s a lot of fear around this disease. And so that, that’s okay, because it raises awareness, and it activates people to take action. But really, there’s a comfort part around knowing your disease state. So having the accessibility to knowing your own health, when you want to know it, I don’t have to go to a doctor’s office, no offense, Doctor, Nick, or to a hospital or to a clinic, I can do it anywhere I want on on demand, I’m going to go visit a loved one in an extended living facility, I can test myself before I go, I want to go to a sporting event or a concert or a wedding, I can test myself immediately before I go and know my disease state. And that’s the self empowerment piece that we want to unlock and unleash through the accessibility and usability of the test.
Nick van Terheyden
I think that’s really important when you think about the sort of personal choices that we have to make. You know, it was only just recently that we finally saw the release of testing capability without a doctor’s order that was previous now virement in this case, you know, why should you need it? As I think about this, you know, it reminds me a lot of the image that I’ve tried to prove, project on others, you know, the perfect example of testing would be Nick walking around with a little bubble over his head saying clear, clear, clear, oh, yeah, affected all the time, you know, constant, which, you know, it’d be very expensive, you know, we’re not getting to that. This seems like it’s the closest thing, obviously not public. So it sounds like you’ve really addressed the privacy issue. So that next bubble only appears when he wants it to appear. And you can be confident that it’s valid based on this date and time of testing. Tell us a little bit about.
Exactly, exactly. And that is, um, has been very important to me and to the mission for the company, that and again, you know, I don’t necessarily mind going to see my physician or going to the hospital. However, you know, it’s a good place to get sicker, hospital acquired infections. If you we use the use case, going back to RSV, you know, when your baby or your child is sick, the last thing you want to do is put them in the car seat and take them to urgent care, you’d love to know at home what the disease state is, again, that empowerment and safety for the entire family. And you don’t want other people to know what your disease status That’s for you. That’s a personal information, that that I feel very important that individuals need to hang on to whether it’s frankly, let’s extend this beyond COVID, a urinary tract infection, a sexually transmitted infection, right? All of these diseases, infectious diseases, I think, really the privacy and the personality of I know and I get to choose, do I share that? With who? Someone who can help me, you think about it. In the mental health world, you don’t really tell everybody I have depression, I have anxiety, you have a mental health professional that you share that information with, that’s your choice, we want to do the same thing for infectious disease.
Nick van Terheyden
So is as that sort of takes place in in your process? And you talk about this with other diseases? It sounds like this is a platform for other disease detection. Is that true?
Absolutely. And we are we are working on developing the test for the two I mentioned for UTI is an STI is that this is not a test for all infectious diseases. But the ones I’m listing, you know are really compatible with our platform. I’ll give you an example of one that I would love to tackle but it’s really difficult as Lyme disease. It’s a difficult one to diagnose. It’s a bacterial infection. You know, an individual may have to have diagnosed over over 20 individual bacteria to really be certain they’re positive for Lyme disease. So that’s it. That’s a tougher problem to solve that we would love to figure out at some point. But the others I mentioned, on you know, chlamydia, gonorrhea, you know, herpes, and of course, the bacteria that called the bacteria that cause UTI, those are all in our wheelhouse. And we want to develop tests for all of those.
Nick van Terheyden
Wow, that’s really exciting. So a little bit of time left. Tell us where you are. I know you, you’re going through the process of approvals. You’ve got some approvals. What what’s the current state of affairs? And is this in use somewhere?
Yes, so the current state of affairs is we’re going through the FDA regulatory process to have our at home COVID test approved. And, you know, it’s rigorous. And there’s a lot of work, but we’re, we’re in process. And that’s really our main objective in front of us right now, we will quickly extend this to a multiplex version of our product that will include COVID, influenza, and RSV, in a single test. So really, that’s what’s in front of us right now. And going through FDA is extremely important to access, again, the most people, because we, you know, obviously, we’re a commercial company, and we have investors and, and their support and guidance has been amazing and great for us. But also part of our mission is, of course, to help relieve suffering. Right. That’s what the healthcare companies do. And that’s part of what we do at IDEO. And so we’re anxious and excited to get our product in the in the market to do just that.
Nick van Terheyden
Fantastic. So in the remaining time, can you tell us a little bit about where you see this going? And what the opportunities are, and how this is going to address some of the discrepancies in in the world that we’re seeing that I think we’re going to be continued to be challenged? Right?
Oh, absolutely. You know, as you know, we have 30%. For COVID, for example, we have 30% of the US population now, completely vaccinated, but only 3% of the world population completely vaccinated. So what that means is, that’s an issue because that 97% of non vaccinated people is an opportunity for for the disease to develop variants that could be potentially problematic to future vaccines and antivirals and all sorts of testing. So what is COVID? Sort of, you know, I believe everything in life is an opportunity to learn, and everyone’s a teacher. So what COVID teach us is that, first of all, we do need a global platform for testing. And of course, for therapies like vaccines, we absolutely need that. Because there are many people attributed to this quote, but a disease anywhere is a disease everywhere. If it’s in Brazil, it will end up in Minnesota. If it’s in India, it will end up in Arkansas, it’s guaranteed pretty much Okay, so so that’s something that we really need and bringing testing at home, which this pandemic has essentially broken the seal on and accelerated that adoption by consumers. And that investment by investors in the growth of companies like Aveo like my company, that’s what you’re going to see happening. Moving moving forward. And again, as you know, there have been three Coronavirus, outbreaks of disease that have significantly impacted humans in the past 18 years, SARS MERS, and now COVID-19 the expectation there will be another one in the next x year in the next six years. Well, highly probable. I can’t
Nick van Terheyden
disagree with you. But I’m going to try and pitch that on a slight uptick and say, That’s true. But because of companies like yourself, and all of the work that’s gone in this time round, we’re going to be prepared and not just prepared in the United States. And you know, some smart other countries, but worldwide as a result of the accessibility in the home setting, so I agree with you, we can’t sort of discount this and I hope we can maintain the attention as a society and as a world as opposed to Okay, we fix that, right. Let’s move on and do all these other things. So 100% agree. Unfortunately, as usual, we’ve run out of time so just remains for me to thank you for joining me, I think fascinating, tremendous product. Congratulations on the X Prize. And you know, good luck with the FDA. I think it’s extremely important that we get this through and get it Now,
thank you for all of that. This has been an absolute pleasure. The best podcast I’ve ever done. Sorry everybody else this is this has been great. Thank you Dr. Nick. Thank you
