Data science and health: Innovation IMFD signs collaboration agreement with Spin-Off UC Environ

September 2022. Early detection of metastasis in prostate cancer patients is the goal of ProstaMets, a prognostic test that analyzes the progression of this tumor through the detection of genetic markers. The technology—which has been awarded and highlighted in the R&D ecosystem—is a development of Environ, a biotechnology startup born under the wing of the Pontifical Catholic University. 

The company has just signed a collaboration agreement with the Innovation Unit of the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data IMFD), which seeks to apply this unit's expertise in data science and artificial intelligence. The test detects the presence of genes in the tumor microenvironment, and this data is taken by an algorithm to analyze and measure the progression of metastasis. 

"We hope to contribute to the automation of this process through the application of explainability techniques that allow us to visualize the process from the moment the algorithm receives the data until it produces a forecast," says Jazmine Maldonado, CEO of Innovación IMFD. In this way, not only are guarantees provided for the automated analysis system, butthe incidence of each gene in each forecast can bestudied, thereby contributing to the research carried out by Environ.