Innovating in Digital Health: Alex Triay’s Journey

At the Bankinter Innovation Foundation, we are very proud of the alumni who have been trained in our Akademia programme.

The uniqueness of the program lies in its design and execution: it ranges from a demanding student selection process to a practical and avant-garde approach to the content of the classes, complemented by the excellence of the teachers. This combination results in students who are enthusiastic about innovation, ready to bring new ideas and creative solutions in their respective fields.

On this occasion, we interviewed Alex Triay Bagur, an Akademia alumnus, biomedical engineer and passionate about Digital Health, who today is a senior scientist at Perspectum, a medical technology company based in Oxford, United Kingdom, which specializes in the development of image analysis solutions for the diagnosis and monitoring of diseases. The company has developed proprietary technology that uses artificial intelligence to analyze medical images, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scans, and extract valuable information about patients’ health.

Below, we reproduce the interview we had with Alex:

What initially motivated you to pursue a career in biomedical engineering, and what led you to specialize in medical imaging?

Biomedical engineering is a broad concept, but it has in common the application of technology over medicine with the mission of helping society. That can include anything from creating artificial organs with stem cells, to prostheses, exoskeletons or brain-machine interfaces. It is a relatively recent career that was created from the need to provide engineers with concepts of biology, physiology – in short, knowledge about the functioning of the human body – to maximize its benefit on patients and health systems, and improve communication with health personnel.

Each university interprets biomedical engineering differently in its curriculum, whether it is promoting laboratory work, or in the electronics workshop, or computer science, or a combination. I would recommend that those interested in the career take a look at the subjects and projects before choosing a university.

Within biomedical engineering, radiology is one of the specialties of medicine that has the greatest potential to be revolutionized by technology, from non-invasive imaging systems to image processing with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. We have entered an era where radiology professionals are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data being generated. From this need, companies have emerged with products focused on image processing to make this process more efficient. In my case, after the master’s degree it was clear to me that I wanted experience in business, and Perspectum caught my attention.

As an Akademia alumnus, what memories do you have of your experience in the program and how do you think it helped prepare you for your current career?

I have very good memories of the Akademia program. I think it was a very good complement to the more formal and academic training that the university gives you. When you are a student at university you tend to research in a natural way. The industry is unknown to you and few of us have experience of real exposure in companies through internships. Akademia’s mentors explain the nuances and possible challenges you may face when starting a business, through their own experiences. From identifying market needs, how innovation processes work, creating minimum viable products and business plans.

What did you like most about Akademia?

Having accessible first-hand experiences from entrepreneurs is very enriching. That the groups are small, the distribution in a circle without physical barriers creates a model of proximity that promotes debate. The fact that the groups are made up of students from different careers (engineering, but also economics, politics, humanities) teaches you different ways of thinking. The fact that mentors are so close makes you see success in entrepreneurship as possible!

Tell us a little about your current role as a Senior Imaging Scientist at Perspectum Ltd. What projects are you currently working on and how does your work contribute to the digital revolution in healthcare?

Perspectum focuses on digital health, we have a software-as-a-service model that provides radiologists with access to non-invasive information about the health status of your abdominal organs, such as the liver, pancreas or kidneys. I’ve been with Perspectum for 7 years now, and I’ve seen the company grow from about 50 to about 300 employees. My work focuses on improving the diagnosis of pancreatic diseases, either through earlier detection (before symptoms appear) or in patient management. We try to discover markers that help us, and we create research studies with hospitals to test them. This video by Trevor Noah explains the recent innovations in this field well.

Now I am also taking on a supervisory role, to develop, validate and integrate new features into our products. I’m also focusing a bit on intellectual property, to better protect the innovations we work on every day.

During your career, you have worked in interdisciplinary teams with people from diverse cultures. What challenges have you had working in such diverse teams and how have you overcome them, how do you think the global perspective has enriched your focus on research and development of medical technologies?

Without a doubt, collaborating day by day with people from different cultures and backgrounds is enriching and a lot of fun, although communication between teams becomes even more important. The needs of healthcare systems in different countries are different, and as a global company we need to understand them so that our technology reaches the population in the best possible way.

You earned your PhD in Engineering from the University of Oxford. What aspects of your doctoral experience were most valuable and how did they prepare you for your current career?

I got a scholarship from the UK government (the EPSRC body) to be able to enrol in the PhD, and it was a more or less industrial PhD in collaboration with Perspectum. Mine was not a typical doctorate, because the pandemic was in the middle (2019-2022). Luckily, most of my work was with a computer and it was not as affected as that of some of my colleagues, but the adaptation was important.

The PhD is one of the first experiences in which you have to take charge of a research project independently, applying the scientific method, and making your own decisions. It also gives you space to get to know your field of research, to learn new work tools and try those riskier ideas that a company with a limited budget could not assimilate. Oxford is an impressive cradle of innovation and talent that has perfected the transfer of knowledge between University and business. In my case, I am now trying to turn my PhD work into the next generation of products at Perspectum.

What are some of the most important advances you’ve seen in the field of responsible, patient-centric AI in recent years?

Responsible, patient-centric AI means prioritizing patient needs in technology development. It’s easy to be tempted, when you have a technology, to try to use it in every problem that arises. We work with doctors, radiologists and healthcare professionals in our day-to-day work, to involve them from the beginning in the innovation process, and to accompany us during development. Doctors identify your needs, and we try to find solutions.

I believe that one of the most important advances of this AI is that it can not only help improve diagnosis, it also democratizes it, lowering the cost, making it more accessible, and standardizing the quality of health care in different countries. For example, there are several studies in which radiologists with different degrees of experience produce standard diagnoses and others with the help of AI. AI does not usually improve the average of the most experienced radiologist, but it does help to improve the average of the less experienced.

Finally, it should be noted that in Europe, medicine has the added challenge of complying with data protection law (GDPR) and respecting the new legal frameworks for AI (for example, the EU AI act).

With the rapid advancements in technology and the increasing integration of artificial intelligence into medicine, how do you see the future of biomedical engineering, and what role will biomedical engineers play in the evolution of healthcare?

As biomedical engineers, we have a responsibility to integrate new technologies and AI into the healthcare system in a regulated and responsible manner. That doesn’t mean replacing healthcare staff, but creating more efficiencies in their daily work, such as the recent medical note transcription test by voice. These greater efficiencies will allow healthcare professionals to focus on the most complex and least tedious tasks of their work. The growing amount of health data that is generated today, for example, with our smart devices (heart monitoring bracelets, applications that photograph dermatological lesions, neurotechnology wearables) needs to be digested by technologies that turn them into understandable reports, and that lead to the best clinical decisions.

If you could give one piece of advice to current Akademia students who aspire to pursue a career similar to yours, what would you tell them?

I think having some experience abroad can be very beneficial. I did my undergraduate thesis in the United States, and my master’s degree in the United Kingdom, which are among the countries that are investing the most in biomedical engineering companies and in the training of engineers.

And that you be curious, tireless, that you focus on finishing your studies and learning day by day in your work. If you have the idea of entrepreneurship during your studies, try to combine it, and if you can’t, don’t worry, you will continue to have it in a few years, and any experience in business will help you. And enjoy the journey!

Thank you very much, Alex! And many successes!

If you want to know the testimonies of other Akademia alumni, you can see them here.

And if you want to know more about the Akademia program, we invite you to visit the Foundation’s website.