Google's new ventures
To most people, Google is a software company specialized in Internet services such as “search engine” but few know that Google has also moved to other areas to diversify its business. Maybe you have heard about “Self-driving cars” technology and “Google Glass” but in the past few years, Google is quietly acquiring many biotechnology companies and aggressively moving into the medical area as it sees it as the next growing area.
Currently Google is working on a technology that combines disease-detecting nanoparticles, which can enter a patient’s bloodstream to identify changes in the person’s biochemistry that could act as an early disease warning system. Early diagnosis is the key to treating disease such as cancers, heart attack, stroke etc. There are differences between cancerous and healthy tissues and Google’s goal is to monitor the blood for traces of cancer before any physical symptoms appear.
Google is designing a pill that contain many nanoparticles which can stick to a cancerous cell and let doctor know where the cancer is; or it can stick to fatty plaques in the lining of blood vessels that can cause a heart attack or stroke if they stop the flow of blood. Unattached nanoparticles would move differently in a magnetic field from those that stick into a cancer cell. A special software could provide a diagnosis by detecting their movements and identify where these nanoparticles are sticking in particular area. Google’s wristband can measure these nanoparticles and if anything unusual happens, it will send a signal to a smartphone and alerts people to go to see a doctor immediately.
Many medical doctors are happy for this new technology. A doctor told the newspaper: “This is great, new ideas are welcome since there is an urgent need for this. If we can detect cancer or other diseases earlier, then we can intervene with treatment.” According to the newspapers, Google is establishing partnerships with several medical schools and hospitals to conduct more studies on this technology. A Google manager explains: “We are the inventors of the technology but we have no intentions of involved in the treatment. We will license it out to hospitals and the partners with doctors. These are prescriptive medical devices, and you need to work with medical doctors for treatments.”
An industry analyst wrote: “Google’s business is strong, it has so much money so it can expand and grow in other areas. If it succeeds in self-driving technology and biotechnology area then it could become the largest and most powerful company in the world. Today the business rule is no longer just profitable but company must grow and expand and that is what Google is doing. By stay focus only on software, there are risks that company may not be successful very long. Google’s diagnostic technology may not succeed but it enters into biotechnology is a move in the right direction.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
