#97 Can AI Change How We Detect Anaphylaxis?: Anjo.ai's Wearable Tech
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Transcript Disclaimer:
This transcript was generated using AI software from the original podcast audio and may contain errors, omissions, or minor inaccuracies. It has been lightly edited for readability. Please refer to the full podcast episode for the most accurate representation of the conversation.
Tal Golan 0:00
January of this year, we were able to demonstrate detection of an allergic reaction in real time, where that reaction was happening in New York and our research team observed it on our dashboard from Israel. These tools are not being used in real world. They're not operational just yet, or approved. But I think you can also understand how strong, how powerful such a tool can be.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 0:23
Welcome to the Don't Feed the Fear podcast, where we dive into the complex world of food allergy anxiety. I'm your host, Dr. Amanda Whitehouse, food allergy anxiety psychologist and food allergy mom. Whether you're dealing with allergies yourself or supporting someone who is, join us for an empathetic and informative journey toward food allergy calm and confidence.
For people living with food allergies, so much of the experience involves uncertainty. We analyze our symptoms, we try to determine if we're having a reaction or if a change in our child's behavior or demeanor is meaningful. We're trying to detect things that are happening physiologically before we can actually see or feel them.
Today I'm joined by Tal Golan and Stephen Benford of Anjo AI, a company working at the intersection of food allergy, wearable technology, artificial intelligence, and real-time physical monitoring to develop a technology that could give us more information during those moments.
Tal began his career as an Air Force combat search and rescue pilot and later worked on advanced sensor and aviation safety systems for commercial aviation, taking that experience into his work developing safety technology for people at risk of anaphylaxis.
Stephen Benford is the operations and finance leader of Anjo AI. His career experience is in the life sciences and tech sectors as a finance executive, and he's also the co-founder of the Keep Smilin' for Abbie Foundation, which many of us in this community know is a nonprofit created after the death of his daughter Abbie from an anaphylactic reaction.
In today's conversation, these two join us to tell us about what Anjo is building, what wearable data can potentially tell us about an allergic reaction, the research behind their technology, and what earlier detection could mean for individuals and families managing food allergies.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 2:11
Tal and Stephen, thank you so much for being here on Don't Feed the Fear. I'm really excited to share what you've been working on with everybody in the audience and the food allergy community.
Stephen Benford 2:19
Hi Amanda.
Tal Golan 2:19
Thank you for having us, Amanda. Great to be here. Thank you
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 2:21
So excited to talk. Let's give everybody a little idea before we talk about the company, just who each of you are and how you ended up doing the work that you've been doing. Stephen, would you mind starting?
Stephen Benford 2:31
I am Stephen Benford. I lead operations and finance for Anjo. I came to Anjo about a year-plus ago, maybe a year and two or three months ago. I come to the problem with, very high passion for detecting anaphylaxis and helping the allergy community. Our family lost our daughter, Abbie, to an anaphylactic reaction to food there almost 13 years ago in 2013. She was 15 years old. We started a foundation shortly after that to fund research into detecting an anaphylactic reaction.
The research we funded led to some really interesting things, and then I still believe very strongly in that research and some of the things that came out of that. But the promise of Anjo is a little bit ahead of our research. We were an educated family that understood Abbie's risks, understood how to treat it if we saw a reaction, and we missed it.
So coming out of that, I've been thinking about this problem for a very long time, about monitoring and helping the allergy community. As the community knows, there's almost 20 million people at risk of anaphylaxis. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America has published studies that show up to 5% of the US population is at risk of sudden death from anaphylaxis. So this is a really big problem. It's solvable, I think, with technology, and I think Anjo's out in front on that, and I'm really happy to be part of the team.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 3:48
Thank you for sharing that. And on behalf of all of us in the food allergy community, we appreciate so much all that it takes for you to turn that pain into productivity and protection for everybody else.
Stephen Benford 3:59
Appreciate that
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 4:00
Yeah, and we're going to do another episode later this year to talk more about Abbie and your foundation and the work that you've been doing, so thank you in advance, and people can tune in for that to learn a little bit more about that side of things as well.
Stephen Benford 4:12
I'm looking forward to that.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 4:13
Tal, would you like to tell us about how you got into doing what you're doing?
Tal Golan 4:17
Absolutely. I'll start with the background story. My co-founder and I are former Air Force pilots. I was a combat search and rescue and medevac Force pilot in my former career. After my military career, we've kind of rolled into advising and developing a lot of aviation advanced sensing and safety technology, future cockpits, enhanced flight vision systems, sensors, et cetera. Itamar, my co-founder, his daughter She's anaphylactic to milk. and coincidentally, Itamar and I worked on a project related to pilot safety and wearable technology. So basically to monitor a pilot to understand its physical state distress, stress, and other metrics that would be observed for a single pilot. In the future, there's going to be an autonomous commercial flight, and on the path there's going to be crew reduction in our lifetime, I don't think we all, we need to worry about that, but
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 5:15
You saw my eyes get big when you said that!
Tal Golan 5:17
yes. Uh, but it's going there, uh, at least in my estimation, it's not in our lifetime, but it's going there. And on the path to that crew reduction, we've built an AI co-pilot that would monitor that single pilot, that would be monitoring that jet flying hundreds of people. And during that project, Itamar's daughter, they were in Chicago at the time, his daughter went to daycare. The daycare was very much aware of her allergy. They had an action plan laminated and briefed and thoroughly, but kids in class. And they, uh, she accidentally drink, drank another child's milk and initiated a reaction where the daycare staff missed it.
Now, I'll fast-forward. Fortunately she survived, but she did only after four hours in the ICU in intensive care unit where they literally fought to save her life. And this was only purely luck. And when looking and hearing Abbie's story and we should not rely on luck for these children and these folks' survival. So, following that episode that happened, Itamar and I got our minds together and started looking into this and realizing that there are millions of kids and tens of millions of people roaming around Earth being at a very high risk, or, a bite away from something that could take their lives.
And second, there are tens of millions of families which you deal with and work with that are have the daily anxiety every time their kid steps out of that door and goes to daycare, to school, to and grandpa or play dates. And there's no reason you should live in that fear and anxiety. And with today's technology, sensor advancement, connectivity, AI, there's no reason why this solution should not exist. I said, you know, we g- you could, you could change the temperature, uh, in your living room halfway around the world, but why is it that we can't see our kids' safety and health just being two blocks away at school? So we started investigating it. And, it was a very tough beginning. We built our own hypothesis on what can be done with a wearable and everything we've learned, but many immunologists rejected it and said anaphylaxis cannot be detected with electronic means. It varies from one reaction to another. It even varies within the same person.
My co-founder and I only get fired up when we hear the word impossible, so we thought, "Okay, we'll dig deeper." Itamar's wife has a PhD in healthcare optimization and research, and we did an extensive literature review, and we met Dr. Pistiner. He's the first one who gave us a shot. I mean, he's the first one who raised his eyebrow and said, "Oh, pretty interesting idea you guys have." And he helped us refine it. I live here in the States. Itamar went back to Israel. We took it to the largest food allergy institute in Israel, and we placed some prototypes on some kids and people and adults during oral food challenge. And then for two or three months, we started testing and building models until we reached proof of concept, where we predicted anaphylaxis up to forty-five minutes before clinical symptoms.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 8:30
What's hitting me as you're both sharing those stories that inspired the creation of this. Stephen, you said so clearly, how we can know all the information and Itamar, your co-founder's daughter's situation, we can have all the plans in place, we can be educated, we can prepare. All of that is so important, but it's not 100%. Why wouldn't we use this technology to create some additional, buffers and patch some of those places where there are weak points? Why doesn't this exist? It seems like the technology is out there. But as you shared the understanding how to do that prediction sounds like it was the more complicated part that you've been working on for quite a while. Tell us a little bit about creating the first set of data in Israel for those who are curious about that piece of it.
Tal Golan 9:16
Israel has a tendency to embrace and work on big, bold ideas. There's always a path there to create the environment, to reduce the bureaucracy. The flexibility to take an idea, and to spark it, to light it up, and to continue to develop it. And Israel is known for just being aggressive on big, bold ideas. That is why we took it to Israel. So after following this proof of concept, obviously it got the staff quite excited, and we've launched a full formal clinical study, which by the way, won two awards. One of them was by the AAAAI, and I am happy to say that, uh, following that abstract that won these awards, a few weeks ago, we've learned that the paper has been accepted to JACI in Practice and will be published in the next couple of months.
So this is a really, really important milestone for us. This study reflects our foot in the door, I would say. This is our foundational model regarding a certain biomarker that we've brought forth with the use of a wearable. So the first data set came from Israel post this post this study. We are now continuing to accumulate quite extensive and important unique data from Mount Sinai. We have a collaborative study with Mount Sinai led by Dr. Hugh Sampson and Dr. Mary Grace Baker. Amazing, amazing, obviously, entities in the industry and amazing physicians and scientists. and then continuing on to data, we were recently invited by COFAR to participate in the next SAFER Study, using our technology. So part of the SAFER Study is evaluating various technologies for detection of anaphylaxis, and I'm happy to share that our devices will be deployed.
We're already deployed in five institutions and progressively are deploying in the other five. So those are increasing our data sets for your question. And the last thing I'll say is that we've also launched a couple pilots with private practices. We continue to accumulate this data, and maybe we'll continue on throughout the podcast. We'll talk about the importance of this data and uniqueness of it.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 11:18
Sure. I think that maybe before we get too far into the details, let's tell them exactly what it is and what it does.
Tal Golan 11:25
After the extensive literature review we did, we saw some markers that were extracted using a bedside monitor, or an EKG or ECG in some studies that had similar…we define it as autonomic dysfunction, similar to other conditions that were investigated. And we thought to ourselves, there are now wearables and wearable technology that some of those markers can be calculated, extracted, and calculated through a wearable device. So in the first prototype iteration, we placed a, it's called a generic kit. It's a prototype wearable device that we wrote our own software, and we sat there and, and ran the markers that it can extract, and we reached proof of concept where we predicted anaphylaxis forty-five minutes prior to visible symptoms.
Now, fast-forward after we entered a collaboration with Samsung, we've since then expanded the list of biosignals that we collect. So... And this is where I can get into how do we do it. So the collaboration with Samsung allows us to extract raw biosignals, as opposed to the processed biosignals you may get from your Apple Watch or regular, normal Samsung watch or any other wearable. And most advanced wearable devices pretty much have the same sensor suite, some more than others. And there are core sensors that from them, there are derivatives and calculations that you could do. The primary ones are heart rate, SpO2, accelerometers, meaning movement, electrodermal activity, and skin temperature change. Out of those or out of the heart rate, there are other derivatives that can't be calculated, such as respiration rate, and heart rate variability.
We brought forward a novel biomarker related to a specific calculation of heart rate variability that is part of our core solution. We have a foundational model on which we proved the proof of concept, but are also the developments and the models that we train right now look at multiple markers. So not only a single marker. There's some work that's already been done about blood pressure and transdermal water loss.
I think the advantage in our technique is that during allergic reactions, we observe these multi-biomarkers continuously in a raw form, then when we see one that may alert an allergic reaction, the model validates with the rest. So heart rate variability may spike. The model will go and look at other metrics such as skin temperature, what is skin temperature doing, what is electrodermal activity is doing. And then because every reaction looks different, we are collecting these multiple and multiple allergic reactions data, then we're able to teach that model these time series biosignal information, and then able to produce an alert in high certainty. Of course, this is still in development. We have very strong preliminary results. It's not perfect. We're still working on it. There's a lot of data to be collected. But I'm proud to be the company that's now been over two and a half years been collecting allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis and mild or non life-threatening reactions.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 14:48
Can I just clarify, it's AI, right? Machine learning is AI or is there some distinguishing factor between the two that I wouldn't get?
Tal Golan 14:54
Yeah, that's a great question. No, machine learning is a subset of AI. Machine learning is a technique or a subset of AI. Artificial intelligence will be part of our solution, not yet incorporated. Most people now know AI as large language models, so the ChatGPTs and the Claudes of the world. But machine learning is just a subset of that, although in our solution, eventually, there will be LLM incorporated, but very specifically constrained and specifically trained LLM. So what we eventually create is a machine learning, then on top of that will be layered your personal ChatGPT, that is, that has been observing your markers using our models, and produces the results or the insights and predictions, and God forbid, a reaction, a prediction for action based on you specifically.
Stephen Benford 15:46
The experience that Tal described around Itamar's family, where we had an accidental exposure. They had an action plan, they had an awareness of the allergy of the child, and there was an accidental exposure. That's every parent in this community's nightmare. That they have a plan, they inform the caregivers, and then somebody makes a mistake. And we know of examples where this has ended tragically, and we know of examples where we've had near misses like with Itamar. With our family, we knew about Abbie's allergies from the time she was, uh, 15 months old. We were aware of the risks. We managed the risks. We... She went to school. She played sports. And then she had an accidental exposure from a cross-contaminated product in our own home.
Each of these examples that we talk about and connecting that dot around exposure. If you have an exposure, accidental or otherwise, you end up with a situation where you're assessing the patient, the kid, the adult. If something's happening and you're not really sure where, you may not even be aware of the exposure, and that assessment phase is full of ambiguity and it's subjective. The criteria is clear in one context and you can put it on a card, but in the moment of assessment it's very subjective. Is it different than five minutes ago? Is it getting worse than 10 minutes ago? That subjective and ambiguous state at the moment that it's most important to intervene is what Anjo is trying to sort of insert itself.
Tal talked about the clinical applications. Right now we're in the clinical phase of trying to gather data, test the data. What are we seeing in the data, and can we get to a point where we're able to see a reaction ahead of time? We're seeing very promising results. And so to me, the value of Anjo is doing exactly what we talked about 13 years ago when we formed the Keep Smilin For Abbie Foundation, which was create, create technology, identify the technology, and bring it to market that helps patients remove the ambiguity in that, in that detection phase, because that's where the gap is. Every medical problem, every medical problem is solved with early detection. And in this community, with tens of millions of people at risk of very serious outcomes, I, I call it, in the shock and awe context, tens of millions of people at risk of sudden death. We're not talking about time to treat, time to assess. You have minutes to assess, and then you have to intervene prior to catastrophic organ failure, cardiac arrest, respiratory failure. You get to that point, epinephrine won't work. You gotta have a functioning cardiovascular system.
So the promise of Anjo is to bring data to that assessment phase and inform the patient something, something has changed, something's different that's, is happening here. And so the connecting the dots point I'm trying to make is we've been talking about detecting the reaction. We found Anjo and Anjo is working to advance that right into the patient homes through this Anjo technology. It's just an incredible opportunity
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 18:41
Well, and you describe it so well. What we're doing, those of us who are living with this, and what we're carrying is this weight of becoming... We almost have to be mini medical professionals. And in moments that that are the most emotionally overwhelming, we're expected to think clearly, as you said, and assess things that really are beyond our qualifications that we can only, as any medical professional learns, through experience. The medical risk is huge, as you described, and as you both touched on earlier, then the psychological weight that that creates, that we carry, that everyone carries, even those who don't experience these events, the toll of that is just huge when you think of millions of people times their parents and caregivers and so on…
Stephen Benford 19:22
Right. The, the clinical application that Tal touched on is also very significant. We should talk a little bit about that too, because when we talk about clinical procedures like oral food challenge and up-dosing of an OIT case in a clinic environment, the patient then goes home and continues that dosing regimen. If we could introduce, as Tal talked about, introduce the Anjo technology to that full cycle and bring the watch home with the patient, now we've got data that a clinician can see if the parent or patient aren't really sure if the dosing is going well, if they dose and the child or the patient doesn't seem like they're reacting right. Today, what happens is that the family calls the office, they leave a message. The on-call physician calls back and says, "What's happening?" And they say, "Well, not really sure. Jimmy doesn't look right. Jimmy doesn't feel like he's feeling good. We gave him a dose about 25, 30 minutes ago, and what do we do?" And then the clinician starts asking subjective questions. "How does he feel? What does he look?" And some objective things. "Did they throw up?"
But if you could put the technology at the home and put the wearable on the patient, then the clinician can pick up his phone or her phone and look at an Anjo dashboard on the phone and see all the biosignals coming off the wearable and determine, "Hmm, it looks stable to me, and the trend line, if I go back an hour is off, and you need to get medical help. You should go to the ER." Or, recommend a clinical course, whether it's a therapeutic intervention or wait and see, wait and watch, call me back in 10 minutes, or I'm going to call you in 10 minutes, or I'm going to watch the dashboard for 10 minutes live and, and I'll call if I think it's getting worse, if I see something objectively. Right now, that's all subjective and if the clinicians err on the side of caution. They say, "Well, you know what? If you really think there's something wrong, get to the ER, and we'll-- And then come visit me later this week, and we'll talk about the dose level." All that adds stress, cost. All that bad stuff happens in the system. We think Anjo adds value in that clinical application as well as the sort of emergency case that I described
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 21:27
Yeah, you described the hesitation in the beginning from some of the people that you reached out to create this, but high five, thank you to Dr. Pistiner, who I'm not surprised that he's the one that bit on this project, because he specializes in those youngest patients, and I think really gets that all of what you're describing. And it's another layer, right? You can speak to how the accuracy is, but I see the glass half full in terms of extra information.
Stephen Benford 21:50
The notification, Amanda, is sort of an end state. It's where we want to get to, the ability to accurately predict and notify. We can't quite do that yet, but just provide data, because right now there is no data. It's subjective. It really is not an objective assessment. It's a subjective assessment. The point you made around parents and caregivers are effectively proxy medical people, is really, really, I would say tragic at this state of our technology economy. We should be able to provide better information to people at this risk, and that's where Anjo comes in.
Tal Golan 22:21
Yes, I just want to thank you, Stephen, for all that. It's important to note something about the solution. There's the near term and the long term. But in the near term, we are not building a diagnostic tool. It's important to know. We're not building a tool that will tell the parent, "You shall or shall not administer epi." We are a decision support, and we will give you a notice, a heads-up to prepare that something is going on. Check in with your child right away. So we close that loop earlier rather than later. As Stephen mentioned, so you don't start understanding there's a major problem where it's already entering the too late stage, where the wolf is already in the room, right? And you better act quickly. And like Stephen said, maybe epinephrine at that point may not even be effective. What we are building in the near term is heads-up, we suspect an allergic reaction is coming. Prepare accordingly. And then you would, as a parent, do the diagnosis that was approved and prescribed to you by your allergist and the action plan that is there's a consensus around it. By the way, we will have it in our app. But at times of stress, you would have the Anjo app to go step by step, which would ask you the questions needed for you to make the decision to give epi or not.
It's a heads-up, but the confirmation comes from the clinical diagnosis of anaphylaxis. We're not challenging or changing the clinical diagnosis for that. I will say one more point about your data, and I highly appreciate you, and maybe that's why you have us on your podcast, but the ability to know. So I know of families that during OIT went multiple times to the ER during dosing Why? Why does that happen? After the fact, they realized that the kid has a viral infection. They weren't aware. And obviously there's what's called a threshold, a personal threshold, right? So her threshold at that time, it was low, and then triggered anaphylaxis from the daily dosage that they gave her throughout two weeks or so. Anjo will tell you, "We suspect that your, the child is unwell. Consult with your allergist before dosing today." Okay? And then you close that loop a little earlier, and you don't need to go to the ER because of during OIT.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 24:36
It'd be worth it just for that piece as an OIT parent. That was the worst part of OIT is that constant, "Are they sick? Should I be dosing?" They give you these clear rules, but if you're a parent, you know that it's not that clear, and your kids can be acting just fine and have a virus coming on. So for that alone, that would be so worthwhile in terms of giving that information. Information and time is what it sounds like it can buy you.
Tal Golan 24:58
Yes. Absolutely.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 25:00
I'd like you to explain the rollout. People are going to want to know how they get this and when they can have this.
Tal Golan 25:05
We are starting with a first non-medical claim product that's called Anjo Connect. That Anjo Connect has four value propositions. One of them is continuous connectivity to your child. You could see their bio signals at any time, whether they're with you or they're out in sleepaway camp or at school.
The second is we will tell you if they substantially deviated from their baselines. So there's a period of adaptation, and if we see anything irregular a signs of stress or distress, then we will send you a signal. But not medical claim and not medical advice in any sort.
And then the third value proposition is that product will turn into the full, what we define as Anjo Protect. Protect is everything we've talked about so far, is that device with a wearable that will be able to produce an alert when we sense high likelihood of an allergic reaction or anaphylaxis.
And we will, at that point, post- regulatory approval, we'll state, "Check in with your child now. We're predicting a severe allergic reaction that's coming." One of them is in development, which is the Anjo Protect, the fully regulated product. That will be available around the, the end of '27, beginning of 2028.
And then the Anjo Connect is actually something we're about to launch very soon. At the time that this episode will air, I think that it would be available for pre-order. You will have a chance to pre-order your device and get your Anjo Connect. The perk for that Anjo Connect is also when Anjo Protect is ready, you will be the first one that to, to be converted into that product. It's going to be a software update on your device and on your phone. So that's availability and timing.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 26:56
Okay. Can you talk about the pricing?
Tal Golan 26:58
I can. We're in collaboration with Samsung. There's a lot of factors in play. But at the moment, the pre-order is $369 as a pre-order. What you do is you put that deposit, and you've essentially bought the watch. If you want, after the fact, to disengage with Anjo, you own the watch. It's going to be likely a Samsung Galaxy Watch9, so this is the newest generation of watches. The watches will actually ship around May or June of next year. And then whoever does the pre-sale, it starts with a $30 per month subscription. Anyone who missed the pre-sale, post-May or whenever we go live, where the pre-sale campaign ends, it will be $45 a month subscription.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 27:45
For selfish reasons, we are an iPhone family. You mentioned that there are other models that you're in exploration with. Is that much farther down the road or sooner somewhere within this process that other devices might be available as well?
Tal Golan 27:59
It depends. We're at a critical moment of evaluating the technology and the compatibility, not necessarily with the sensor maturity, but with the path on how we develop it on that certain wearable. I will say, though, that it, although it's a Samsung watch for Anjo Connect or Protect, you don't have to be a Android or Samsung phone owner. It will communicate with your Apple phone. So the, the advantage of having this Samsung business relationship is when you get that watch, that Samsung watch shipped to you, it already has the Anjo software on it, okay? And that software will talk to your iPhone. if you have any other phone, it would talk to all of them. So it's not that we're excluding the Apple users out of the gate. As far as the other wearable manufacturers and how it'd be available on other wearables, like I said, we're at a critical moment. It could go quickly. It could go a little longer, but I know there's interest on all parties to have it available on other wearables, not only Samsung.
Stephen Benford 29:02
I would say that the company is in a startup mode. We're working hard to get a product out to market to help this community with objective data to help with their care management and wellness. We envision ourselves to be hardware agnostic, so we're not permanently wedded to any one platform. We think about our product as a software tool on a subscription basis that is hardware agnostic and with the right resource level and the right success path, then we'll get to be a hardware agnostic platform.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 29:30
Makes sense. What are they actually detecting? What are the sensors and the factors that they're picking up on and using in these predictions?
Stephen Benford 29:38
It's heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, electrodermal activity, SpO2, and there's an accelerometer in there.
Tal Golan 29:45
Right now we are retrospectively analyzing all these biosignals and training machine learning models on them. About a year ago, we developed a tool which is a real-time monitoring or a dashboard that is on the path, on our development path to produce, first and foremost, the AnjoConnect, and of course, down the road, the AnjoProtect. So that tool, what it allows is not only a retrospective analysis for allergists or any clinicians or any medical institutions, but also prospective. And this tool brought some pretty incredible results. The first and foremost is that in January of this year, we were able to demonstrate, detection of an allergic reaction in real time, where that reaction was happening in New York and our research team observed it on our dashboard from Israel. So you can envision how this can be used not only in clinical environment, but also parent that gets a notification of when their child is at the playground and just ate something they weren't supposed to.
We are already deployed in two private practices. We have a few others on the list. Again, these tools are not being used in real world. They're not operational just yet, or approved. But during this pilot where we learn workflows and integration into clinics and practices, they reported to us that on multiple times they were able to see through our dashboard they saw the alert. one case, it was only 13 minutes before they clinically diagnosed it So we gave them the alert, they walked up to the child, the reaction evolving, and then eventually diagnosed it with anaphylaxis and gave them Epi. And I think you can also understand how strong, how powerful such a tool can be.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 31:31
Absolutely. Yeah, from the parent perspective, to imagine that is so exciting. There's so much I want to ask you, and it's hard to balance because there are people like me who really want to nerd out about it, everybody wants to know a different amount. But I'm selfishly going to ask a psychologist question next with the time that we have left.
Tal Golan 31:46
Please
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 31:47
It one from my skeptic brain or my critical thinking brain. I do a lot of biofeedback in my work. I have a very body-based practice, and I talked to you about how so many of the physiological changes that come along with anxiety mirror those that might be seen in an anaphylactic reaction. So I would love for you to talk about and explain, how does the app handle that information, and the difference between those two very similar experiences?
Tal Golan 32:14
Absolutely. Absolutely. Great question. Thanks for touching on that. Anxiety is actually one of our core interests in the first study. And we did that separating not only with an anxiety questionnaire, but we also had, during the study, notes of the emotional state of the patient to compare to our results. And at the end of the day, we are measured against what was clinically diagnosed as anaphylaxis or allergic reaction and what was not, and that's how we teach our model what is anxiety and what is not. But those are all insights we're looking, into the clinical studies. Those are some of the insights that we still need to work on as we go out to the real world. But make a long story short, we are addressing the anxiety issue quite extensively in our studies.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 32:59
I am excited about that part above all else, and the things that we've talked about in terms of future ways that this could address some of that piece of it too, because the anxiety piece is so physiologically intertwined with the physical anxiety reaction that I just have all sorts of exciting ideas about how this will help people.
Tal Golan 33:18
Our purpose is to reduce the anxiety and not increase anxiety. We received a lot of feedback from some of the clinical studies of families that did the challenge with the watch on that it reduced their level of stress, both the parent and the child. watch does not alert anyone at the moment. It's just a form of intaking data.
Not even the clinician is getting an indication. However, during the clinical study, we do not alert anyone, and still, we have reports from families, that the level of stress during oral food challenge was much, much lower than without the watch. And I think it's common sense to think that, first of all, there's other forms that are observing and monitoring you. And I think if a child is at school or anywhere else, the fact that or daddy can check in at any time, or I can ping mommy and daddy to check in is some form of anxiety reducer or, to reduce anxiety, another set of eyes are on you all the time, is how I would define it.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 34:31
I'm smiling as you say that because I can picture my little guy, like when he was five years old saying, "Mom, can you check my metrics?"
Stephen Benford 34:37
I wanna say too, I, I think I would close with help is on the way. We know that this community, needs information. Information is power. Information is empowering. Results are promising. We have a study from Israel where we, we were able to detect anaphylaxis up to 45 minutes before clinical symptoms were diagnosed. We have a private clinic in the US that he mentioned that, that is using our dashboard and they've seen it. They've seen symptoms of an allergic reaction, anaphylaxis in particular, up to 13 minutes beforehand. Again, they're observing it on our dashboard, these symptoms, and they go and check the patient. Very, very promising.
And most exciting, I think, for us is the case in New York that Tal referenced where we had a case during oral food challenge where a child suffered an anaphylactic reaction, and our team in Israel observed it in real time. 6,000 miles away in Israel, we were able to see the reaction on our dashboard in real time. To me, that's the epitome of our North Star. It's that remote monitoring concept. And so I think the results are very promising. We have work to do, of course. But, help is on the way, and we're very excited to be talking about this now to the community.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 35:42
Yeah. Well, thank you both for your part in that, and thank you for being here to tell us all about it. It's so exciting to hear.
Stephen Benford 35:47
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity.
Tal Golan 35:48
Thank you. Thank you for having us. I will, I will say that everything Stephen said is in the name. Anjo means angel in Portuguese. We are building the guardian angel for everyone at risk.
Amanda Whitehouse, PhD 35:58
Thank you, Tal and Stephen, for giving us so much to think about and for using your innovation and your drive to create something that could change what life looks and feels like for our community.
Here are three action steps that you can take after listening today.
First, follow Anjo AI, anjo.ai, and keep learning about where this technology is actually headed. As you heard, there are two distinct tracks, Anjo Connect which is available for pre-order with devices expected to ship out in 2027. And Anjo Protect, which is still in development as a regulated medical technology that will provide earlier alerts and decision support around allergic reactions.
Number two, revisit your action plan with fresh eyes. Something Tal and Stephen really made clear in today's conversation is that it's always going to come back to our allergist's action plan to guide our decisions. Pull yours out, read it through as if for the first time. Is it current? Does everybody know where it is and what it says? And if you notice any lingering question or uncertainty about what you would actually do, write them down and bring them to your next appointment. Feeling clear on your plan ahead of time is one of the most important things you can do, both for making wise medical decisions and for addressing your anxiety.
And number three, notice what that uncertainty or those what-ifs do to you. As we talk about so often on this show, food allergy is not just a medical condition. It shapes how we interpret our bodies and our sensations, how we interact with our children, and how much uncertainty we feel we can tolerate. Better information might ease some of that burden, but our relationship with uncertainty will always be there. So the next time you find yourself in a what-if moment, whether it's about allergies or something else, try gently naming it. "This is uncertainty, and it's uncomfortable." That acknowledgement can help to regulate the emotions, and the pause can make the difference between reacting from fear and responding from a steadier place.
Thank you for listening, and I will talk to you again next week.
The content of this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any questions about your own medical experience or mental health needs, please consult a professional. I'm Dr. Amanda Whitehouse. Thanks for joining me. And until we chat again, remember don't feed the fear.