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Conversations in Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine by the American Thoracic Society
non: [00:00:00] You are listening to the A TS Breathe Easy podcast, brought to you by the American Thoracic Society.
Patti: The Respiratory Innovation Summit will be here before you know it, uh, it was held in San Francisco this year. And it's coming up in Orlando not too far from now. And our deadline to apply to speak is, uh, is uh, February 13th. Joining us is an innovator founder, CEO of Samme, uh, who presented her technology at RIS at a TS conferences in San Francisco.
Dr. Maria Art Daga welcome, perfectly pronounced. Hi Patty. Thank you for having me. And, uh, your story begins in a very small town in Columbia, not Bogota, but [00:01:00] very small town mm-hmm. Where your parents both were physicians, um, and you were surrounded, you said, by women who were very, very strong women and, um, movers in shakers, including your mom who is a surgeon.
Maria: Yeah. Absolutely. So, um, so yeah, my story began in Colombia. It's, um, rural town of 300, 300,000 people. A lot of strong-willed women in my family. And I was a daughter of two phys physicians, um, that really shaped, uh, but what really shaped me was, um, the story of my little sister with tubal palsy. Um, seeing her struggling watching how she couldn't do.
A lot of things, especially moving it around. Um, it, it was something that really I struggle with. Um, so part of the story. Into my journey to medicine starts with her. Um, I was heavily motivated to get into medicine. Obviously the fact that I come from, from a family physicians, but what [00:02:00] I witnessed first with her life, I wanted to fix things to, to heal.
And that's why I. Originally wanted to become a surgeon. I spent some time during my medical school doing a rotation at a, at a military hospital in Columbia, seeing trauma, seeing what surgery I could actually do, and then I came to the US to spend the last year of my medical school here in the us. Um, during one of those rotations, I, I got a contact that led the, to an unpaid position at one of the Harvard's most prestigious genetics research labs.
But, uh, well, it was an incredible opportunity of course, but I had nothing, uh, they wouldn't pay me for the first year, so I had to go back to Columbia and I, I worked for a, you know, a few years to save $30,000. I remember the, the exact amount. Precisely. And until I had, you know, enough money to support myself and eventually go back to, to Boston, where I spent about three years doing general res research and that sacrifice, you know, that heart worked, taught [00:03:00] me, you know, a lot of things.
Something, you know, especially, you know, something simple and brutal. You know, when you have to get something to happen, you have to really work extra hard and there is not a shortcut. And that's exactly what I do actually every day at Aya Hustle. A lot.
Patti: Right. And you ended up in Chicago and wanting to be a plastic surgeon, but uh, the cards didn't play out, uh, the way you had hoped, but in the long run, it, they did.
Um, and you had to must have been very frightening and disappointing, uh, that you had to switch gear to public health.
Maria: Yeah, I, I was, yeah, I'm lucky. I experienced discrimination and unequal treatment, uh, during my surgical residency. I complained about it. Um, and instead my program, uh, director, instead of addressing that issue, that was probably 13, 14 years ago, uh, he actually terminated my contract because I became an ones, um, you know, I'm just, you know, too annoying for him to manage for [00:04:00] speaking up.
Um, and I. It's a really interesting story because even finishing, before finishing my rotations, there is a interesting anecdote. He sent me home to hand to write, um, to do handwritten summaries of a 500 page, uh, plastic surgery, uh, surgery book. Um, as a punishment. That's a lesson because I was working about, um, it was a very traumatizing experience.
Um. Yeah. And I, I decided to leave clinic clinical medicine for good because of that, you know, unfortunately that a nightmare that I had to go through. Yeah. Uh, but at the same time, you know, I mean, uh, that moment broke something also in me, um, but not in the way that probably he had intended. Um, it made me really realize that, um.
You know, no amount of publications or credentials protects women of color from their developed countries, from systemic inequality. Anyway, um, and it made me angry. So that's why I refer to, to this thing of like, you know, leaving medicine behind. Because what I, I decided to do [00:05:00] was to, you know, create something for my own.
And I decided to get into public, um, public health, global public health, because that was the, the other thing that it really, uh, passion was very passion, um, was one of my passions. Um, especially because I come from, um. A rural setting in Colombia, and I saw a lot of inequalities, uh, in, in the rural place where I was living.
And obviously by affected my parents were physicians and they had a, a hospital where they manage a lot of people. So I, I, you know, experienced a lot of the things that, uh, people from low, so socioeconomic, socioeconomic status, I have to go through and live every, every single day.
Patti: They say life is a journey, not a destination.
So dots eventually connected. Yeah. Thank you. And, uh, how did may come about?
Maria: Wow. The, the idea, the concept of emia, uh, it was actually pretty interesting. Um, it most people actually, uh, compare it to, to, uh, a continuous glucose motor immune sensor. Um, the concept came from a [00:06:00] specific moment. I call it my Eureka flash.
Uh, and, um, I, I was visiting a pulmonologist at the Veterinarian Affairs hospital probably seven years ago, and he was talking, he was. Citing all of his research on the trapping that ha, he was going like, you know, studying for the past decade or so and how the lungs sound different when air gets wrapped inside and when the disease progresses.
And what I realized at the moment, at that moment was that sound, is that right? And the resonance of the lungs tells the story. So what I thought was, you know, if somebody with COPD, for example, obstructive disease, which was. By the way, the disease that killed my grandmother. And the reason why I started doing all of these interviews with pulmonologists at the time, um, so what I thought was, you know, if patients with C-O-P-D-S start developing a trapping or trap their, including their lungs when they are declining or when they are having more exacerbations, you could probably use an acoustic signature of the [00:07:00] swords, probably the resonance of the lung.
To, to figure out what's going on inside. And, you know, that's the moment when everything clicked. Um, and there is a device that is called Spirometry. That's the one that's, that's been, you know, existed for 170 years so far. But it hasn't really been innovated in a way that. It's the same technology and I just thought, you know, maybe a different approach could change a lot of things for everybody, especially using something as portable as this and that you can place on your chest, send signals, uh, through the chest.
And we use very sophisticated mathematics, so the bikes and the softwares that, you know, we are using every day on computers. Um, and maybe if we have this new original idea, we could do. The same thing, probably lung function, anywhere you go, uh, and especially you coming back to this com comparison with the continuous glucose monitoring sensors, the idea of mi, it's to eventually become the Dexcom for respiratory.
So a company that is building [00:08:00] patches that you place on your chest for two weeks in a row and you get your numbers every single day.
Patti: So it's akin to what diabetics use, um, to monitor sugar.
Maria: Yes, exactly. So Dexcom is a company that builds the devices. There is obviously Apple and everybody knows about them, so they put them on either, you know, their, their arms or their abdomen.
In the case, of course, of respiratory diseases, you have to be on the chest anyway, so that's, that's the main idea. We have 17 granted patents so far, and about 15 more pending all over the world. Not only the us we have patents in China, in Chile, in Israel, even in Canada, Europe. Korea, Japan, Australia, you name it.
Wow. So, uh, yeah, we, we have a lot of patents, which is obviously very, very good.
Patti: So your family actually led you, not only your younger sister, uh, that led you to wanna do. You know, plastic surgery and then you switched [00:09:00] gear and found something because your grandmother, it was a, um, homage to her. And your husband also is an MIT engineer in acoustics.
Yes. That helped to develop the, the. Correct. Yeah.
Maria: So yeah, so the original idea when I left medicine, um, and I did this Master of Public Health, I decided to go into another master's degree at Berkeley, uh, for technology development. And I was. Taking a class, uh, a business class where I had to complete a hundred customer interviews.
That's, that's how they call it. The literally just qualitative research. You have to go out of the house of the building or the school at the time, and you have to interview a lot of people. And that's how everything relates to the interview that I was mentioning about with this pulmonologist that were, when he was explaining his research about her trapping.
Um, my grandmother had died from C-O-P-D-A few years before that interview. And I wanted to understand why she had [00:10:00] passed in Columbia. What I had thought at the time was that, you know, maybe we are just living in a developing country and we don't have the right techno technologies to monitor people when they are outside of a hospital.
Mm-hmm. We still rely on patients to tell us how they feel. So either are the symptoms, you know, I'm coughing more that I'm short of breath. I cannot climb the stairs. I'm, I'm not sleeping well. And we are still relying on qualitative data to even actually diagnose exacerbations of respiratory attacks. So 50% of the exacerbations go undetected and unmanaged everywhere.
It, regardless if you're in colo or here in the US could be anywhere in the world. So I wanted to understand why that was happening. I did an interview with this pulmonologist and I don't know, I mean, I guess the planet's aligned in a way. I happen to be married to a guy who went to MIT and he's an acoustics engineer, an electronics engineers by by background as well, and he was working at Google, so he is one of the worldwide, you know.
[00:11:00] Leading engineers in all things acoustics. And we've been married for a long time, or 18 years, I think, um, that we have known each other and he's always running experiments, all the experiments at home. And I, I don't know, at the time that I was describing with the Eureka moment, I just thought, what if we use the same methodology like, you know, hearing aids, consumer devices, speakers and phones that come on, like, you know, headphones.
Or maybe in consumer devices such as mobile phones, right? Um, what if we send those signals through the chest, but using very affordable sensors? So, I, I, I wasn't thinking about using expensive ultrasound sensors that if you, I mean, just Google it. Portable ultrasound is costing you probably 2000 bucks, the little tiny ones.
In my case, I wanted to really solve a problem that is killing. Most of the people overseas in the global south, especially in lower middle income countries. And that's when I thought, you know [00:12:00] what, if we use. These speakers on microphones that you buy literally online, you put in a different form factor, like I call them.
You know, the silver device is literally like a headphones for the chest. Right now. We are sending signals from the back to the front and we are making the long resonate as some musical instrument, and that's exactly what we are doing. We are using that resonance. Acoustic resonance signals as the proxy or the foundation of everything that we do within semi, which has a lot of, of course, AI machine learning, algorithms, building, and they also processing, cleaning up everything.
So, yeah, I mean, I don't know Patty, I mean, I. It was a way
Patti: to making a huge impact. Yeah. The way you wanted to. I got
Maria: lucky.
Patti: I got lucky. Okay. And so being, uh, an innovator, entrepreneur involves taking risks and uh, that is something that you impart on to other women, correct?
Maria: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because [00:13:00] we as women, we are always told that we should definitely avoid risk and try to.
You know, go by the book, right? Like, just follow a book, do the exact same things that everybody else is doing because it has been the risk and it's going to work out. But one of the things that I discovered, especially when I was left with nothing, when I was kicked out from my residency program and unemployed for two years, was that probably that wasn't the right way of, you know, doing things.
Because not every time you follow. The recipe or the protocol, actually things work out. And in my case it did not. And I was always an a plus student. I was the best SAT in my coun, like in my state, one of the top 10 in my country. I had a billion scholarships on everything that I did academically. I was really, really good.
I always excelled. Um, but you know, I mean, I think taking calculator risks is definitely worth it. Mm-hmm. Um, and I, every time that a woman come to [00:14:00] me, I. To ask me for advice. I always tell them, you know, don't wait for permission. The real risk is alive on Lyft. But at the same time, you have to think of all of these plan PC and D things.
Things don't work out, especially financially. So in, in our case, for example, for Sam, I. My husband Ricardo, he helps me with a company, but he's still, you know, working for BTech and that works perfectly for all of us as a family. So I think it's a smart way of building a company. Uh, and it has worked well, um, yeah, as a
Patti: startup.
So investment, you said you received a $50,000 grant from, um, NSF? Correct. And, uh, but it just. When it took grit because you just, uh, would not take no for an answer and you tend to pursue things that are difficult rather than most people who say, you know, they wanna take the easy route.
Maria: Yeah, so I've been working on this company for seven years [00:15:00] and yeah, just going back to what you were saying, people ask me constantly, Maria, why haven't you really gotten, you know, an FDA clearance, yet?
You met me so years ago, why is taking it so long? But, um. So I, I, what people doesn't really get is that we are actually building a technology and what it means is that we are not building on an existing technology or a predicate, another device, right? We are creating something entirely new, and hence that's why we have 17 granted patents, and that requires training.
Algorithms with thousands of patients. That requires building a wearable that is probably going to cost three to 5 million more to develop properly and doing it under two years. If you want an American team, well that's going to be quite expensive, especially in my case, what I had to do. Originally when I try, try to, um, raise money, obviously the idea sounded too crazy.
We went through a lot of the lit literature and like [00:16:00] there were a few papers on using the principle of acoustic resonance to detect respiratory diseases. So obviously nobody really wanted to invest in something that could probably fail. And, and the reality is that medical technology companies struggle a lot, um, because it's fundamentally different from biotechnology.
With drugs, you can set your own price and you can control your margins, but with MedTech you have to fight for reimbursement codes. Uh, how
Patti: did speaking at, uh, RIS at a TS, uh, in San Francisco, how did that validate you?
Maria: It valid, oh my gosh. Um, after a TS. There's a really, there is a really a nice story about, um, respiratory, the Respiratory Renovation Summit.
Um, something truly unexpected happened to me. Um. There was a doctor, uh, that published a paper. His last name is, well, his name is Dr. I don't even know if I'm saying it correctly, the German way. [00:17:00] Dr. Jens ho. Um, he works at the Frank Hoffer Institute of Technology in Hannover. Um, and he had published a paper on a trapping detection and COP diagnosis using low frequency sound.
So mainly the same principle that we were using, and I, I never reached out to him ever, ever before. And during my presentation, right after I finished, he came to me and he told me, Hey, by the way, I'm the doctor who actually wrote a paper. I'm the senior author. I will have never, ever expected my research to actually inspire.
A technology that is currently being, you know, developed for an actual, you know, to help people. Right. Um, so I, he had no idea that I even existed. So that moment was truly inspirational. We even took a picture and everything. I was so excited about. I didn't expect him to be there, and obviously he didn't even know that about me [00:18:00] either.
Um, so yeah, the moment was sort of like surreal, a leading European scientist realizing that his foundational work is now becoming a product that could reach millions is, is amazing. And. Also the respiratory innovation. Something has been helping in many, many other way, ways. It opened a lot of the other doors.
For example, we are right now, um, finishing up a couple partnerships with other startups and we are negotiating contracts and NIH from director who saw the presentation. Presentation is actually advising me. Uh, now, and the most important thing, of course, is that Kii, a pharmaceutical company from Italy that I was talk, I'd been talking about a year, probably six months before the actual Respiratory Innovation Summit, when they saw.
You know, the energy in the room, right? Like the pulmonologist, the scientists sort of like very, very excited about what this could do for democratization of respiratory diagnostics globally. Uh, it, it really validate us as a company and they decided to go ahead and sign a [00:19:00] pilot with us. So we sign in August, three months later, and we're extremely happy.
And and you're
Patti: expecting a huge announcement coming up.
Maria: Yeah. I mean if with kiosk, if hopefully if everything works well, uh, we are thinking of, of continuing the partnership, obviously everything depends. Um, it's up to them, but so far, so well the pilot is actually going very well and all of our technical milestones, I've been, that means
Patti: a million dollars.
I've been
Maria: getting Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry.
Patti: A million dollars in investment.
Maria: I dunno. Maybe, maybe. Um, I think it's too early to tell, but hopefully, yeah, I don't know. I mean, if we, if we decide to move forward that we will probably make an announcement sometime the summer of 2026. We'll see. Fingers
Patti: crossed.
Another designation that you, uh, achieved this year is top 100 female, um, in Latin America, or they're not all Latin American, but about, correct. [00:20:00]
Maria: Yeah. So I, I just found that, um, I'm, I'm one of, uh. Top 100 women in technology. Uh, it's called Aurora Tech Awards worldwide. Um, 3000 women applied. Mm-hmm. From 125 different countries and I made it, um, one of 11 Colombian on the list and nine Americans.
I'm Colombian American. I have a citizenship ship here. Um, and it means a lot because, you know, I'm a woman from Latin America building deep technology here in the US in a space where. What an honor. Most founders, yeah, most founders don't, they don't look like me. Right. So I'm definitely an outlier everywhere I go here in Silicon Valley, so it means a lot.
Patti: So what advice would you give to other women teeing on starting something?
Maria: Oh yeah, yeah,
Patti: yeah.
Maria: Um, it's gonna be a little brutal. Um, I would say be willing to be uncomfortable. Um. When I left plastic surgery, especially [00:21:00] my partners, they thought that I was crazy, that I should just get into another residency and, and that's it, because that's their right way of practicing medicine, right?
Um, and I, you know, I had, you know, these prestigious, you know, specialty, clear path recognition, et cetera, et cetera, but I, I, I decided to just walk away from everything. I, I just wanted to build something where I was proud of. That's sort of like a legacy type of thing. Um, and more importantly, where.
People around me were okay with having me as a Latina with an accent doing work. Right. And I'm also pretty, pretty ambitious, pretty driven. So, um. If I had five things to say, I'll probably say, you know, in my case, what has worked really is, you know, listen to the problems that are very close to your heart.
In my case, the, the fact that, you know, my family members inspire a lot of the decisions that I've made in my life professionally. The other thing is. I am not ashamed anymore of saying, or [00:22:00] of having, for example, an accent or saying it out loud. I'm from Columbia, so every conversation that I have nowadays with, especially with investors, like I have noticed, I have an accent.
I'm from Columbia. Let me tell you about my country and my culture and like. I move these hands the way I do. Right. Uh, so yeah, that's, that's very interesting. And the other thing is like, you know, surround yourself with believers. In the case of my husband, he's been great at supporting me and my company, and obviously be patient with the timeline.
Patti: What's a short term and long term goal that you have to make your mark? Just what? Yeah.
Maria: Really honored. And
Patti: you said you always pursue things that are difficult rather than easy. So where do you see yourself?
Maria: I'm thinking more about the company nowadays, the technology than myself anymore. Uh, I don't know if it comes with Agent 45 now, but I wish at least 1 million people have used the technology by 23.
That's my [00:23:00] goal these days, uh, either through a diagnostic product or a monitoring product of the sorts. Um, I really wanna impact a lot of lives instead of like, you know, thinking as a surgeon who was doing a surgery every four hours. Right? I, I really wanna see that something that I invented is touching the lives of millions of people because I.
They can be helped in ways that right now they have no, no way of solving at all. Right? I mean, we are still relying on people feeling how, you know, telling us how they feel to make diagnosis of exacerbations or even the itself COPD or asthma, or any other chronic respiratory condition. So we have a true problem with diagnostics worldwide.
Patti: Dr. Maria would love your energy and enthusiasm and, uh, thank you for joining us today and hope to see you soon. Oh, thank you so
Maria: much for
Patti: having me. We'll wait for your book.
Maria: Ha. Yes. Give me mm. Eight more years.[00:24:00]
non: Thank you for joining us today. To learn more, visit our website@thoracic.org. Find more ats, breathe Easy podcasts on transistor, YouTube, apple podcasts, and Spotify. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe, so you never miss a show.