In this update, our progress with disease-precise AI, patient registries, fundraising, rural healthcare partnerships, and advocacy for pediatric-specific research and care.
Disease-precise AI agents. We are getting ready to test both a new BevelCloud instance type and 12 of Pediatric Moonshot’s kidney disease-precise detection and progression agents using actual patient data.
Trial-precise AI agents. We just received the complete trial protocol from a pharmaceutical company focused on FSGS therapeutics. We are working with them to build a trial-precise agent, which will also be run on patient data. They are trying to run clinical trials for children and are having a very difficult time finding patients.
Next-generation patient registry. Inspired by the work we are doing with the National MS Society, we have started building a next-generation patient registry. Today’s patient registries are among the most important pieces of scientific and research infrastructure, but they are expensive to build and maintain, often not very representative because they are largely run at major medical centers, and highly inflexible because they are based on rigid SQL schemas.
Building the .org fundraising capability. We are ramping up the .org’s fundraising capability. We are pleased to say that we have received our first six-figure donation from a high-net-worth individual, and a second is in the works from a surprising source.
We are also undertaking a complete, ground-up redesign of the website to make donations easily accessible and open to contributions of all sizes. In our initial testing, we already have 10 donations through our Impact Circle.
Rural healthcare transformation. The U.S. federal government has allocated $50 billion to support state-led rural healthcare transformation. We are partnering with children’s hospitals to launch initiatives in several interested states.
The proposal is to use disease-precise detection and progression agents to bring specialized expertise into rural hospitals, with referrals directed to specialists at children’s hospitals. Roughly $200 million is available this year, and if we do not speak up, it is likely to go primarily to adult medicine. We recently had a call with the governor of one of the country’s most rural states, building momentum.
We see advocacy as one of the central roles of the .org. Without awareness, how can there be funding?
At the core of our work are the atlases. We started with Oncology, Cardiology, Neurology, and Nephrology. The 618 known conditions across these areas can all be translated into disease-precise AI agents. They also provide the foundation for a series of Atlas papers:
Unique. Four papers focused on the ways children are not simply little adults, making the case that pediatric subspecialties need their own AI.
Missed. With so few specialists, how often are these diseases undetected or misdiagnosed, and what are the implications? Four papers will focus on Oncology, Cardiology, Neurology, and Nephrology.
Trials. Four papers documenting why the drug and device pipeline is failing at the patient-enrollment bottleneck.
Rural. Across all conditions, how many children are living with each disease? How many new cases are estimated to occur within rural populations?
Future. The past predicts the future. If we went back to 2021, how many known conditions would there have been? Based on that trajectory, what might the next 25 years hold?
Interested in any of these papers? Just reply to this email or message us on LinkedIn for early access, we’d love to hear what you think.
The opportunity in front of us is significant: we have to bring pediatric expertise closer to every child, accelerate clinical trials, and make sure children are represented in the next generation of healthcare infrastructure.
But we cannot do it alone. We are looking for funders, clinicians, researchers, children’s hospitals, state leaders, and advocates who can help turn this work into real-world impact and are not yet aware of Pediatric Moonshot.
If you can think of someone you know, please reply, make an introduction, or simply support Pediatric Moonshot through our Impact Circle on Zeffy.
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.