New Innovation That Gamifies Your Gut Exam

If you are over age 50, your physician may urge you to have a colonoscopy to check for cancer. You might also be urged to have your lower gastrointestinal tract checked using a colonscope and upper GI tract checked using a camera held on to a flexible tube called an endoscope that slips down your throat. An alternative to a procedure which some facilities offer is to swallowing an imaging device shaped like a pill that follows your intestinal tract down through excretion. The limitation with that versus a manual scope is that the current device you swallow can't be directed and so it may miss problem areas. That's why inventor and entrepreneur Torrey Smith started Endiatx. It's a company that's building a newer version called a Pillbot, a type of robot you can swallow, that can be controlled remotely while you are in clinic with your healthcare team. He talks to hosts Kym McNicholas and Dr. John Phillips about gamifying the gut exam and future use cases for robotics in examining the arteries and other areas of the body. Smith sees microrobotics as a game-changer in diagnostics and interventional medicine, at some point even sprouting surgical instruments to treat real-time. Prior to this project, Smith helped invent a device that would remove plaque from the arteries, which is still in use today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.