Health summit shines spotlight on new digital innovations

Pills that tell your doctor when you took them. Cancer-fighting DNA therapy that replaces chemotherapy. Video games that help your child manage diabetes.

These are a few of the exciting new digital health technologies en route to your doctor’s office.

Many of the innovations presented at the INTERFACE 2013 International Digital Health Summit in Vancouver on Thursday focused on helping manage aging populations and their chronic conditions.

Arna Ionescu of Proteus Digital Health explained her company’s health sensor — smaller than a pinhead — can be inserted into medications and swallowed safely to enable physicians to track adherence.

The one-cent sensor is activated when wet during digestion and relays information on dosage and vital signs to physicians. The technology is being used in hospitals in California and the U.K.

“What Proteus is doing is putting the Internet in your medicines,” Ionescu said.

Cancer treatment is also gettin gate chage overhaul. Onto Sec Medical CEO Punit Dhillon said his company is in Phase 2 clinical trials with a targeted skin cancer immuno-therapy called ImmunoPulse. It takes a patient’s DNA, re-engineers it with a protein and inserts it at the melanoma site, triggering the body to selectively attack cancer cells. The outpatient procedure could be available by 2018 as an alternative to toxic chemo regimes.

“I believe chemo can be obsolete in our lifetime,” said Dhillon, a former B.C. resident.

Vancouver-based Ayogo Health is working with B.C. Children’s Hospital on trials of slick new video games for kids that help them manage chronic diseases requiring daily monitoring.

Vancouver’s Claris Heathcare Inc. has developed simple tablet computers designed for technophobic senior citizens that let them do everything from teleconference with doctors to track medications, make calls and check emails.

Presenters also shared next-generation, bleeding-edge wearable computers and apps.

Recon Instruments developed technology to embed athletic indicators into eyewear for athletes.

BioBeats has a product that turns people’s pulse and biometric data into music, all by pressing a finger to a smartphone camera lens.