The mass adoption of fitness trackers and smart-watches has opened the door to a new world of diagnostics and health monitoring. These and other photonics-enabled devices are at the cusp of shaking up the healthcare market. Hear from the innovators who are disrupting traditional doctor-patient practices and the related healthcare markets at this Photonics Focus-sponsored panel discussion.

MODERATOR

Gwen Weerts Editor in Chief of Photonics Focus SPIE (United States)

Gwen Weerts is the Editor in Chief of Photonics Focus, SPIE's award-winning bimonthly magazine that highlights real-world applications of optics and photonics technology. She has worked in scholarly publishing and science communication for fifteen years. Gwen is a member of the Society for Scholarly Publishers and the National Association of Science Writers.

PANELISTS

Rachel Kuperman Founder and CEO Eysz, Inc. (United States)

Rachel Kuperman is a pediatric epileptologist who ran the Pediatric Epilepsy Program at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, Oakland for 10 years. While trained in physics and neurophysiology she grew frustrated by the lack of data used to make critical decisions about diagnosis and management of epilepsy leading to no significant improvement in outcomes in 30 years. The cardiologist had Holter monitors, the endocrinologists had remote glucose monitoring, but the neurologist at best had a patient-generated seizure diary that was less than 50% accurate. She founded Eysz with the goal of using patient-generated data to transform the outcomes of people with neurological disease starting with epilepsy.

Bonnie Gray Professor Simon Fraser Univ. (Canada)

Bonnie Gray is a Professor in the School of Engineering Science (ENSC) at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Canada. She has chaired the SPIE Conference on Microfluidics, BioMEMS, and Medical Microsystems since 2014. Dr. Gray has over 140 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications, and has given more than 25 invited, keynote, and plenary presentations, in the areas of novel materials and fabrication techniques for biomedical and microfluidic devices and systems; development of flexible and wearable microfluidic and biosensor technologies; point-of-care instruments; and chip-based biological cell sorting and trapping methods. She has 3 issued patents on conductive polymer nanocomposites, and wearable and reconfigurable microfluidics. She currently leads funded projects involving wearable electronic/microfluidic platforms; self-sterilizing textiles and personal protective equipment; and wearable drug overdose detection monitors.

Aaron Zilkie Co-Founder and CTO Photonics Rockley Photonics (United Kingdom)

Aaron Zilkie is co-founder and CTO Photonics at Rockley Photonics and currently leads Rockley's internal next-gen technology development and R&D developing novel integrated photonics technologies for new product solutions and markets. He has led the early core photonic platform and IP portfolio developments at Rockley. Aaron brings over twenty-two years of experience and leadership in technology innovation, R&D, new product development, and IP portfolio development in a broad range of optics and photonics application areas including biosensing, healthcare monitoring, 3D imaging, LiDAR, data communications, high-performance computing, and fiber optic networks. Aaron holds over forty granted U.S. patents, has authored numerous journal publications and white papers, and given numerous invited conference presentations on Rockley's technology. Aaron holds a PhD and a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering (photonics) from the University of Toronto, and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Manitoba.

Zane Arp Director of the Division of Biomedical Physics Center for Devices and Radiological Health Food and Drug Administration (United States)

Zane Arp division's focus is developing regulatory science tools that accelerate patient access to innovative, safe, and effective medical devices through best-in-the-world regulatory science. He is also the co-lead of a new joint venture with Veterans Healthcare Administration (VHA) focused on developing regulatory science tools to address needs in interoperability with a particular focus on point-of-care devices and wearables. He has a PhD from Texas A&M University, seventeen years of industry experience, and sensor development experience in applications for space sciences, explosives, pharmaceuticals, and health care.