Liz Asai is the CEO of 3Derm, which was recently acquired by Digital Diagnostics. Liz started 3Derm as an undergraduate at Yale University, with support from the Bioengineering department. 3Derm began as a research project with the intent of publication, but after validation from dermatologists at Yale and other healthcare executives, Liz and her team saw the potential of their technology. Through competitions and accelerators, 3Derm grew out of Liz’s dorm room, and in this episode of Spotlight on Women in Health Ventures, Liz spoke with us about her journey.
Highlights of our conversation include:
- The regulation process for AI and teledermatology. Algorithms and AI are highly regulated, especially because of how “hands-off” AI can allow medicine to become. An important distinction to make within AI is autonomous vs. assistive AI. In this context, an autonomous AI system would be able to make a diagnosis without the aid of a physician, and likely propose the relevant treatment plan. An assistive AI system, in contrast, is meant to help a physician by helping them to diagnose and make treatment decisions given a patient’s condition. 3Derm’s technology is a form of autonomous AI, allowing primary care physicians to determine if a patient needs to be referred to a dermatologist or not.
- Bias, diversity, and inclusion in AI. A major concern in AI technology is the presence of inherent biases in how the technology analyzes and diagnoses patients’ conditions. Liz addresses two major points of consideration: the technology, and the algorithm. When it comes to taking a picture for diagnosis, Liz says, it is critical to get an accurate image of the patient’s skin; with an incorrect calibration point, medium and dark skin tones especially can be less accurately viewed. 3Derm’s technology standardizes the lighting of the images being taken, so that quality pictures can be taken of patients of all skin tones. In the algorithm, it is important to recognize diversity (or lack thereof) in the training set. If the training data only has pictures of a certain disease from people of a certain skin tone, then that lack of diversity needs to be explicitly stated when putting out the technology, to know that a diagnosis of that disease in people with a different skin tone may not be as accurate. These biases are not normally reported, but 3Derm is trying to counteract that with their technology.
- Advice for women. “You have to have the confidence as if you were raised as a tall white man,” Liz says, echoing the quote from Mindy Kaling. While recognizing biases that exist in how women receive funding is important to realistically planning an entrepreneurship path, it is vital to “stand up as a confident entrepreneur as if those biases don’t exist.” In meetings and pitches, women tend to be seen differently, and so female entrepreneurs have to work hard and be better to get the same amount of funding that a male entrepreneur would.
Want to hear our conversation with Liz Asai? Check it out on Spotify and Anchor!
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Story written by Luiza Perez and Priya Kumar.
