Cedar Health Research, powered by Aspen Insights’ technology is transforming clinical trial recruitment with AI-Technology. Walter Storm, Chief Executive Officer for Aspen Insights Data Science & Artificial Intelligence Firm, is the data alchemist leading the way. Cedar Health Research and Aspen Insights are pleased to offer a two-part series diving deeper into the technology and how it is changing clinical trials. First, read further to get to know Walter Storm.
Meet Walter Storm
Walter began his career in aerospace and defense as a flight control engineer, where he essentially made dynamically unstable aircraft fly using on-board computers. Realizing he could make things fly even without a pilot, he wondered how those algorithms could be used to make human pilots perform at super-human levels. This wonder eventually led him in many different directions as he rode the wave of resurgence in artificial intelligence (AI).
Winter came for AI in the mid 70’s and reached its darkest night in early 90’s. Meanwhile, the focus was on building the internet and increasing the capabilities of desktop computers and graphics engines. Throughout this period, Walter always found ways to leverage emerging capabilities in computational power; using numerical analysis and stochastic simulation to forecast uncertain events. Being familiar with artificial neural networks, he always thought that if given enough examples, he could teach these algorithms with data. Eventually, he would be right.
In early 2011, Walter decided to apply AI technology to finance. With the vast amounts of data available in the trading world, Walter was able to train algorithms to learn how the volatility surface of equity options would respond to changes in market conditions. Eventually, other people with a lot more money and resources than he started to figure it out too. Not wanting to spend his life fighting these advances, he decided to go back to aerospace and defense and apply these emerging techniques to keep our warfighters safe and provide them an unfair advantage at the tactical edge.
Having become a technical fellow at Lockheed Martin, Walter expanded the domains to which he applied AI technology beyond physical sensing and into the world of text and natural language. He trained algorithms that could uncover hidden relationships and the semantic structure of the spoken and written word. He was able to identify skillsets and classify workers based on the software they used and how they used it. This enabled him to develop and evangelize organic AI’s competency across the corporation.
In 2019, Walter was presented with the opportunity to apply his technology in healthcare to find the right patients for the right trial at the right time. It was through this mission that Aspen Insights was born.
The technology developed by Aspen Insights enables them to capture the intent of a clinical trial protocol and create a digital fingerprint of the ideal subjects. Using that fingerprint, the algorithms generate a ranked list of potential subjects that should be introduced to the trial based on their probability of successfully meeting the eligibility criteria and maintaining compliance with the trial protocol.
The technology creates value through scale and efficiency. The scale-wide architecture of the Aspen solution enables their algorithms to analyze tens of millions of patients instantly, and the utility of their tooling and infrastructure enables ephemeral programming against massive amounts of data. This hands-on approach combined with a robust architecture sets a new standard in usability, speed, and data security.
Walter holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a Master of Science degree in Systems Engineering from Southern Methodist University. He is a graduate of Lockheed Martin’s engineering leadership development program and a Lockheed Martin Fellow Emeritus.
Learn More About Aspen Insights
Aspen Insights is an applied data science and artificial intelligence firm principally engaged in the research, design, development, and integration of healthcare analytics systems, products, and services.
Aspen Insights’ mission is to define the state of the art in applied data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning for advancing health and human performance. The expanding therapeutic areas of analysis for Aspen currently include cardiology, endocrinology, infectious disease, internal medicine, neurology, pediatrics, podiatry, and women’s health, with the technological capability of expanding well beyond. Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, Aspen Insights is ready to help advance your clinical trials. Learn more about Aspen Insights here.