PHIND Seminar Series - Orestis Vardoulis, PhD

Orestis is the CEO and Co-founder of Zeit Medical, a telehealth company that offers at home monitoring and alert solutions for patients at risk for stroke. Prior to starting Zeit, Orestis was a Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellow where his team developed the initial idea about at-home stroke detection. Orestis trained as a Mechanical Engineer, at Aristotle University, Greece, earned his PhD in Biotechnology and Bioengineering at EPFL, Switzerland and conducted cutting edge research in flexible wearable electronics with the Bao Group at Stanford Chemical Engineering. He has authored more than twenty publications in prestigious journals and has filed for a variety of patents at the intersection of materials technology and medical devices. Orestis currently lives in San Francisco, where he also contributes to the UCSF-Stanford pediatric device consortium as a technology advisor.  He also maintains close ties with the med-tech and health-tech communities in Switzerland and Greece, contributing to regional Biodesign educational workshops.

There is a growing population of over 10 million Americans that live with an elevated risk of having a stroke.

Each year approximately 1 million Americans survive a stroke or a ministroke, often severely affected by its debilitating effects. A more disabling stroke frequently occurs after the seminal events, leaving patients and their families scarred for life.

TIME = BRAIN. Early hospital presentation is the most critical determinant in good stroke outcomes. However, most patients arrive at the hospital often hours after the event, with less than 10% receiving any form of treatment (thrombolysis / thrombectomy).

As a result, at risk individuals struggle daily with the fear, a stroke might happen during night-time or when they are alone. Unfortunately a stroke that goes unnoticed for hours, is most often not treatable due to the lack of salvageable tissue.

To alleviate that fear, we are creating an AI-powered, smart-headband that analyzes brain waves to detect the onset of an event immediately, and alert the patient, caregivers and 911.

Our stroke detection AI has already been shown to detect ischemia during high-risk surgeries with 90% sensitivity and no false positives.

We have received FDA breakthrough designation for our solution and are currently running a pilot human factors and signal quality study.

Our vision is to provide peace of mind and optimal brain health for everyone.