An AI for Asthma? Breathe Easy: One May Be in the Works
Stevens Launchpad student Michael Moschello is developing wearable AI for asthma-attack prediction
An estimated 25 million Americans are afflicted with asthma. When an episode comes on, it must be treated quickly with rescue inhalers and other medicines.
But sometimes those aren’t available in time: about 10 Americans tragically die each day from severe asthma attacks.
Stevens undergraduate Michael Moschello believes artificial intelligence can help save some of those lives — and he’s working to create an application that might one day do so.
“I’m an asthmatic myself,” says Moschello, a computer engineering student. “I know that feeling of helplessness and distress. My commitment is to help people achieve better health, using technology and biomedical informatics.”
As the grandson of alumnus and former Alumni Association president Tom Moschello ‘63 M.S. ’65, Michael has been visiting the Stevens campus since childhood — and forged an early connection to the university that included interning with business school professor Donald Lombardi.
“Stevens was the ideal place for me,” he says. “It’s a university that encourages students to harness technology to make a positive impact and to build real-world solutions
Wearables that predict attacks
Moschello’s venture, code name BioProxal, aims to use an easy-to-wear device packing proprietary AI that predicts severe asthmatic episodes up to five minutes before they strike, with high accuracy in early tests — tapping into a potential $25 billion global market for asthma treatment and relief.
His idea: wearable devices that collect users’ heart rate, respiratory, blood-oxygen and other data, then give haptic and other warnings urging preventative measures when a predicted oncoming attack is sensed.
"Pursuing a career in medicine is one meaningful way to improve patients’ lives,” he explains. “While I considered this field, I realized that developing systems, wearable devices and applications offers another avenue to leverage my AI background.”
Moschello is developing the concept as part of Stevens’ Launchpad program, an entrepreneurship training and incubation program that teaches undergrads to bring great tech ideas to market by connecting them with seasoned entrepreneurs.
Under the leadership of Launchpad director Mukund Iyengar, ventures from the program have already created more than $100 million in market value.
“Launchpad has been phenomenal,” enthuses Moschello. “It puts students in close contact with leaders and entrepreneurs on a regular basis, accelerating our learning curve. There’s so much about entrepreneurship that you can’t ever learn in a classroom.”
For its part, the Launchpad program has awarded Moschello more than $6,000 in seed funding to date. He plans to use that early backing to fabricate and test a prototype device, then outfit volunteers — developing the concept while improving the underlying tech at the same time.
The BioProxal system is built using publicly available health databases, Moschello explains, which he has processed and used to train novel learning models that analyze health trends, creating “synthetic data” representing millions of hypothetical (but typical) asthma patients in the process.
As it works, the AI will unmask powerful biomarkers and other features for predicting the next likely severe asthma attack before it strikes.
“Instead of using just one stream of data, this tech can effectively process a theoretical infinite number of data streams to fuel these predictions,” Moschello explains. “This improves the robustness, redundancy and accuracy of this system over existing models considerably.”
"And as these learning models harvest user data, they will also enhance their own performance and predictive power. The system will get better over time.”
A VC offer, a pharma internship
Others have begun listening. After appearances at BioNJ’s AI & Digital Health Day, where he won top prize for his “lightning pitch,” as well as on stage with Stevens President Nariman Farvardin at Prudential’s Newark headquarters for a Data, Service and Technology Town Hall, Moschello received a serious venture-capital firm offer of equity.
Which he politely declined.
“It wasn’t right for me at this time,” explains Moschello. “I’m aiming even higher, continuing to build and test this product awhile longer, possibly carrying it through to become my capstone senior design project in two years.”
“Of course, it was flattering to receive the offer. I truly appreciate that a VC felt confident placing faith in me and the future of BioProxal.”
Moschello also continues to participate in an ongoing series of internships with the Rahway, New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant Merck, where he played a pivotal role in developing a sophisticated yet user-friendly process to train a chatbot for the company, among other contributions.
“Michael has been an integral part of the team,” comments Bertha Alwan, an associate director at Merck who supervised his first internship with the company. “He demonstrated a deep understanding of technical concepts and utilized this knowledge to contribute to the development of innovative solutions, greatly contributing to the success of the program.”
How far can BioProxal go? Time will tell.
“It’s all a learning process,” summarizes Moschello, “and I’m giving this all I’ve got.”