DALLAS, January 18, 2022 – BALANCED Media|Technology (BALANCED), in partnership with the Retina Foundation of the Southwest (RETINA) and Southern Methodist University (SMU), today announced a patent-pending medical imaging technology (U.S. Patent Application Serial No.16/538,662) that uses automated software and a video game to provide standardized, accurate, and precise identification of ocular diseases including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of visual impairment in the world.

BALANCED, RETINA, and SMU also signed a 10-year exclusive license, development, and commercialization agreement for BALANCED to bring the medical imaging technology to the $35 billion AI healthcare market.

To assist RETINA, BALANCED created and crowd-sourced an original video game, Eye in the Sky: Defender. The game uses optical coherence tomography (OCT) retinal images embedded in the game’s environment to create human-computational image segmentation. As players predict the path of the alien force in the game, they unknowingly learn to trace lines used to perform diagnostic measurements of OCT retinal scans and create new datasets.

When integrated with BALANCED’s HEWMEN® artificial intelligence (AI) platform, these new datasets were used by experts at RETINA and researchers at SMU to provide the information needed to train a machine learning (ML) algorithm to analyze OCT images more accurately and precisely.

“Human and machine collaboration is the next step in machine learning and AI,” said Corey Clark, deputy director of research and assistant professor of computer science and engineering for SMU Guildhall, an assistant professor of Computer Science at SMU Lyle School of Engineering and CTO at BALANCED. “This application is a great example showing how injecting human knowledge and intuition into the machine learning process is able to create something that neither were capable of doing on their own. This is just the first step. I believe we will see many more exciting things come from these collaborations in the future.”

By leveraging this sophisticated level of human-in-the-loop (HITL) computational model, as well as human computational gaming (HCG), it’s now possible to use AI to quickly analyze millions of individual datasets (retinal images) to detect patterns and pathologies that would have been impossible or impractical given the scope.

“This technology could be a game-changer for researchers and drug manufacturers in the data analyzation of disease progression, drug trials, and treatment efficacy for age-related macular degeneration, among other diseases,” said Dr. Karl Csaky, CEO and CMO at the Retina Foundation of the Southwest. “With this technology we are seeing substantial improvements to image analysis, decreasing our time and cost, and seeing a significant increase in the number of images processed and associated accuracy and precision of image processing.”

Dr. Csaky recently joined BALANCED as an advisor, assisting the company as it prepares to bring its medical imaging technology to market. Dr. Csaky has more than 140 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters and is an expert in clinical research and drug delivery development as it pertains to retinal diseases. Dr. Csaky is a member of the Macula Society, Retina Society, and American Academy of Ophthalmology, ARVO, and the American Society of Retinal Specialists.

Research was made possible with a $2.5 million grant

Supported by a $2.5 million grant award from the W. W. Caruth, Jr. Foundation at Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT), RETINA and SMU Lyle School of Engineering partnered in a collaborative venture six years ago to help to rapidly prototype new diagnostic and clinical treatment approaches, focusing on the specific needs of patients who are losing their vision to age-related macular degeneration. The research behind today’s patent filing is the result of that effort.

“We are so glad to see this application of human-machine collaboration in a gaming environment making a difference to the critical health challenge of AMD,” said Marc Christensen, Dean of SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering. “We think this activity is a prime example of how AI and gaming technology are permeating far-reaching corners of our everyday lives.”

About BALANCED | Media Technology

BALANCED is a purpose-driven AI company that crowdsources human interaction and intuition through human computational gaming to bring purpose to play. By crowdsourcing artificial intelligence through online communities and gaming via its HEWMEN platform, BALANCED aids researchers investigating new treatments by creating AI-enabled technologies that reduce research time and cost and increase research effectiveness. BALANCED, a 2019 and 2020 Tech Titans® winner, has been recognized as an industry innovator by multiple groups including the Dallas Business Journal and Dallas Innovates. Headed by founders in data science, computing, video game development, and the medical/healthcare industries, the company is based in McKinney, Texas, and can be found online at balancedmediatechnology.com.

About SMU

SMU is the nationally ranked global research university in the dynamic city of Dallas. SMU’s alumni, faculty and more than 12,000 students in eight degree-granting schools demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit as they lead change in their professions, communities and the world.

About the Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering

SMU’s Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, founded in 1925, is one of the oldest engineering schools in the Southwest. The school offers eight undergraduate and 29 graduate programs, including master’s and doctoral degrees, through the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Computer Science; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Engineering Management, Information, and Systems; and Mechanical Engineering. Lyle students participate in programs in the unique Deason Innovation Gym, providing the tools and space to work on immersion design projects and competitions to accelerate leadership development and the framework for innovation; the Hart Center for Engineering Leadership, helping students develop nontechnical skills to prepare them for leadership in diverse technical fields; the Caruth Institute for Engineering Education, developing new methodologies for incorporating engineering education into K-12 schools; and the Hunter and Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity, combining technological innovation with business expertise to address global poverty.

About Retina Foundation of the Southwest

Established in 1975, the Retina Foundation is a world-renowned research institute with the unwavering mission to prevent vision loss and restore sight through innovative research and treatment. The Retina Foundation develops potential treatments for patients with various eye diseases through laboratory science and clinical trials. Our three core research areas are age-related macular degeneration (AMD), inherited eye diseases, and pediatric eye conditions. Each year, the Retina Foundation sees more than 2,300 adults, children, and infants, referred by their eye care provider, completely free of charge for specialized vision evaluations, genetic testing and counseling, and participation in clinical trials.

Check out other news releases about our work on Opthalmology Times, EurekAlert!, and Twitter

#AI and treatment for #AMD through an academic-industry collaboration:@SMU, @RetinaFndation, and @BalancedMT: using automated software and a video game to acquire detailed images of the eye and more precisely identify ocular diseases.

Details: https://t.co/FklOcp1Won pic.twitter.com/9AA3uj5k1y

— Michael F. Chiang, M.D. (@NEIDirector) January 27, 2022

Contact:

Lori Mezoff/Balanced Media Technology

lmezoff@bmt.world/201-637-2895

That’s the question Dr. John Wise from the Drug Discovery Group at Southern Methodist University asked after looking at all the data and experimental results created from the molecular docking experiments being performed.

HEWMEN is currently performing these molecular docking experiments across every machine that has the Cell app installed; you can check out what it looks like here.

As we saw in the last update, the spike protein is what allows the virus to interact with our bodies. The spike actually lays down and hides until it finds its target.  Once the virus finds its target, it extends its spike revealing its weapon and attacks our body.

If we could prevent the spike from ever rising up, we could prevent it from injecting its genetic material into our cells and stop if from causing COVID-19 type symptoms. The red structure in the above illustration is the spike protein extended, looking for its target in the body.  The yellow portion is the part that actually attaches to our cells.

We believe there is an opportunity to find a compound that can bind to the virus and prevent it from ever being able to raise the spike and, thus, stop it from ever drawing its weapon to attack our bodies- essentially, keeping its spike holstered and harmless.

Using everything we have learned over the past few weeks, we are now processing data looking for a compound that could stop the spike from extending as well as continuing to look for compounds that bind to the yellow portion, which can prevent the virus from interacting with the body as well.

Well, everyone with HEWMEN Cell installed helped us find our very first compound that fits perfectly over the spike protein.  The picture shows the compound we all found (white red and teal) attached to the spike protein (blue).  The compound itself is too potent to be used in large quantities in the body, but it is validation that our efforts matter and we can find compounds that can actually reduce the damage that COVID-19 is causing in our bodies.

Finding these types of compounds helps us refine our search and understand more about how to fight the virus.  The more we find, the better we understand the virus, and we can use that information to help narrow our search to find compounds that will help treat COVID-19 and prevent the devastating effects it can have on the body.

Dallas, TX (April 27, 2020) – BALANCED Media|Technology (BALANCED) and Complexity Gaming (Complexity), one of North America’s most elite and longest standing esports organizations, have partnered to announce #WeAreHEWMEN, a new citizen science/crowdsourcing effort to encourage the video game community to donate spare computer processing power to find treatments to fight the COVID19 virus. BALANCED, a crowdsourced healthcare artificial intelligence company bringing purpose to play, has launched the HEWMEN^® Cell application, a free secure download that creates a virtual network to process drug discovery data for COVID19. Leading esports team and sponsor, Complexity, is urging the gaming community to support the effort by downloading the HEWMEN cell application.

BALANCED’s HEWMEN technology creates a distributed network that processes data-driven problems such as drug discovery and medical research. The HEWMEN Cell application, which uses small amounts of volunteer computers’ unused processing capacity, has integrated BOINC, an open-source software platform used for volunteer resources developed by the University of California, Berkeley. It allows for the virtualizing of servers and applications inside a voluntary grid network and has been widely used with no security issues on millions of PCs. The HEWMEN Cell app was used by BALANCED and computational biologist John Wise, Ph.D., of Southern Methodist University’s Drug Discovery Lab, for finding co-medications to enhance the effect of chemotherapy in the treatment of recurrent, resistant breast and prostate cancers.

BALANCED, with John Wise, will harness the power of gamers to have the HEWMEN Cell app process information from more than 200,000 FDA-approved existing medications/compounds against models of the protein and enzymatic functions of COVID19 to see which candidates prove most effective at reducing the virus’ pathology. Using these compounds, between 1.5-3 million virtual experiments will be run, simulating attempts to dock compounds to specific locations on the virus. By identifying the compounds with the highest probability of success, the effort will dramatically reduce development cycle time and get new treatments to market faster.

“If there’s one universal truth about gamers, it’s that they’re always looking for their next challenge,” said Robert M. Atkins, BALANCED CEO. “COVID19 is the biggest threat to humanity and there’s no community in the world more engaged online than gamers. This makes them the perfect group to empower to help put an end to the COVID19 pandemic. When they hear the call to help, they will answer. It’s the moment they’ve been training for since they booted up their first video game.”

The HEWMEN Cell app can also combine human intelligence with the platform’s machine learning by injecting scientific datasets into videogames. As players interact with the games, they add human intuition and insight into the process as they act upon scientific datasets to solve complex problems or help a computer vision algorithm learn to “read” a certain type of image.

In an industry first, BALANCED recently put a medical research project on Twitch Interactive in partnership with Complexity for World of Warcraft’s “Race to World First.” The livestream event invited viewers to become participants by playing BALANCED’s The Omega Cluster within Twitch streams while watching Complexity-Limit, the top World of Warcraft guild in the United States, become the first North American guild to win the “Race to World First.” During the 10-day tournament, participants logged over 900 hours – or 23 40-hour work weeks – playing The Omega Cluster, virtually processing medical compounds for cancer medicines through their gameplay.

“As with ‘Race to World First,’ we’re proud to partner with BALANCED to showcase the power of gaming and esports within our greater global community,” said Jason Lake, Founder and CEO, Complexity Gaming. “We’re grateful to continue working with BALANCED not only to create an engaging new experience but also to be a part of something meaningful as we strive to find a solution to this global pandemic.”

Other BALANCED efforts include the use of its technologies in an award-winning project by Chief Technical Officer Corey Clark, Ph.D., for the Barbara Bush Foundation’s Adult Literacy XPRIZE (2019) and the creation of an Eye in the Sky: Defender game for the Retina Foundation of the Southwest to improve the automation of interpreting Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) scans used in the diagnosis and treatment of Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

About BALANCED Media|Technology

BALANCED Media|Technology is a crowdsourced healthcare artificial intelligence company bringing purpose to play. BALANCED is focused on changing the way researchers, pharmaceutical and medical device companies leverage machine learning to advance the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. By crowdsourcing artificial intelligence through online communities and gaming via its HEWMEN platform, BALANCED hopes to aid researchers in investigating new treatments by creating AI-enabled technologies that reduce research time and cost and increase research effectiveness. BALANCED, a 2019 Tech Titan winner that has been recognized as an industry innovator by multiple groups including the Dallas Business Journal and Dallas Innovates, is also creating the 8 CELL video game that aids in medical/health education and research. The McKinney, Texas based company is headed by founders in data science, computing, video game development and the medical/healthcare industries.

About Complexity Gaming

Complexity Gaming is one of North America’s longest standing and most successful esports organizations, now owned by Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and investor John Goff. The esports organization is led by Founder and CEO Jason Lake, considered by many to be one of the founding fathers of esports in North America. Complexity Gaming has won more than 140 championships in nearly 30 game titles over its more than 15-year history. Staunchly committed to passion, professionalism, and a player-first mentality, Complexity Gaming has been continuously recognized as a global leader in modern esports. For more information on Complexity, visit http://Complexity.gg and follow the organization on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Facebook.

For BALANCED Contact: Lori Mezoff / press@bmt.world

Today marks the day we come together as a community to form a virtual supercomputer to test approved drug compounds against the COVID-19 virus and find a treatment that can start helping people faster. Thank you for joining the effort!

BALANCED has partnered with Complexity Gaming to announce HEWMEN Cell, a new crowdsourcing effort to find treatments to fight the COVID-19 virus. The HEWMEN Cell app processes information from more than 200,000 FDA-approved existing compounds against functions of COVID-19 to find an effective way to reduce the virus’s pathology.

Leading esports team and sponsor, Complexity, is urging the gaming community to support the effort by downloading the HEWMEN Cell application. By participating, volunteers contribute their computers’ unused processing capacity to a secure grid network as a resource for simulation attempts to reduce the effects of COVID-19. These simulations will identify a docking compound with the highest probability of success and speed up treatment development.

The HEWMEN Cell app also gathers data as players interact with the games, which provide human insight and intuition to the process as they help to solve complex problems. Online gamers answer the call for aid in a search for medical treatment by participating in the HEWMEN Cell project. As BALANCED brings purpose to play, gamers answer the call to participate in a unified effort to wipe out COVID-19.