BIOMED: Developing a Novel Medical Record for the Brain

Our guest blogger for the post below is Ethan Moyer, a Drexel student majoring in biomedical engineering.

My name is Ethan Moyer, and I am a pre-junior BS/MS BIOMED student concentrating in biomedical informatics. There are many reasons why I chose to call Drexel's School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, or BIOMED, my home. For starters, the school is situated in an expansive healthcare ecosystem in between several top hospitals. Philadelphia is a historic and culturally rich city, yet at the same time, it is the playing field for many startups in related industries.

I had my eyes set on Drexel BIOMED for this very reason: I wanted to work at a city-based startup. Now that I'm experiencing it firsthand in my co-op, I can say that it is truly invaluable. For the past four months, I have worked at a medical device startup, Moberg Analytics. My boss, Dick Moberg, has been the pioneer of multimodality monitoring for severe traumatic brain injury for over the past two decades. This endeavor led to the development of the Moberg CNS Monitor, which is an FDA-cleared device used by top neurocritical care doctors all over the world.

I have gained firsthand experience in idea incubation and bringing those very same ideas into fruition.

Moberg Analytics is a continuation of his last company, Moberg Research, which was recently acquired by Micromed. Our company is focused on analyzing and harmonizing nearly 130 signals from the Moberg CNS monitor with other modalities, such as patient medication information, medical images, and genomics — to build a novel comprehensive medical record for the brain. While working at Moberg, I have learned to appreciate practical data science and engineering principles from understanding user needs all the way to deploying dynamic software. We're able to understand our users' needs through weekly meetings with our clinical team, which is composed of top nurses and critical care doctors from institutions such as the University of Texas, University of Cincinnati, and Massachusetts General Hospital. Our users range from these very clinicians to clinical trial administrators and even to soldiers on the battlefield. Dick has helped shape our product development through a robust regulatory process in preparation for an FDA application as a Type 1 medical device. He strongly encourages us to help in this process.

Currently, the company is composed of four full-time Drexel co-ops and three part-time Drexel co-ops. Working in this small company setting has allowed me to explore many areas of product development. I have gained firsthand experience in idea incubation and bringing those very same ideas into fruition. Dick often says that his co-ops must "create problems and simultaneously solve them."

On a higher level, I have had the opportunity to lead in the management side of the company and conduct interviews for future co-ops. Working at Moberg Analytics has been so enlightening that I've decided to take a leave of absence for fall term to continue my six-month co-op for another term. I have never worked on software to the extent that I am now and, well, I love it. My connection with Dick Moberg will play an integral part in my academic development and future career. I am forever thankful that Drexel's Co-op program helped facilitate this partnership.