Rythm Unveils Morpheo, The First AI Platform That Helps Diagnose Sleep Disorders

SAN FRANCISCO, April 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Rythm, a neurotechnology company, today announced Morpheo, an open-source and secure initiative to help develop machine learning models for automatic and predictive diagnosis of sleep disorders. The first platform of its kind, Morpheo will explore and provide sleep clinicians with a free online software that will automatically analyze sleep patterns and help improve and speed diagnosis related to sleep. Morpheo will also enable software developers and machine learning experts as they create models for the diagnosis of other illnesses. Rythm jointly announced Morpheo with École Polytechnique and the Université Paris Descartes with €5 million in funding from the French government and BPI, a French investment bank.

A collaborative project, Morpheo brings patients, medical doctors, sleep experts, academic researchers, data scientists, web developers and cryptologists together to aggregate and organize sleep data on an unprecedented scale. Through sophisticated artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, Morpheo helps visualize complex sleep data for clinicians and allows development of machine learning models on large medical datasets. All of the above is achieved while guaranteeing the privacy and security for all data owners.

"Artificial intelligence, ever-increasing computational power and unprecedented amounts of data are transforming the healthcare industry," said Hugo Mercier, CEO and co-founder at Rythm. "We are leveraging these advancements to understand one of the most important areas of health: sleep. We created Morpheo to provide a research tool that will pave the way for preventive and predictive medicine, enabling clinicians to treat pathologies earlier, faster and cheaper, and even to detect them before they happen."

One-third of people in the U.S. have trouble sleeping, but analysis, diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders continues to tax clinicians. The traditional diagnosis process is extremely time-consuming, and until now, no tools were able to help. Morpheo aims to solve this problem by introducing the first machine learning models that can assist in diagnosis and spot new patterns. Moreover, sleep datasets traditionally were walled off from each other because there were no secure ways to store and process data remotely. Morpheo makes it possible to break down those walls because of the blockchain technology sits at the crux of it.

Once built and launched, Morpheo will be powered by a certified, open-source blockchain infrastructure that guarantees the privacy of data. Users cannot access each other's data, and only limited, agreed upon machine learning algorithms can access the data for training. Using AI, Morpheo will integrate various sources of information, ranging from traditional medical polysomnography to sleep wearables (like the Dreem headband). With these datasets, Morpheo will identify patterns that characterize sleep pathologies and other related illnesses that are attributed to sleep data.

As Morpheo's infrastructure is data and algorithm agnostic - in the longer term - it's approach could be generalized to other healthcare possibilities and beyond. What makes Morpheo unique is its versatility in handling sensitive data to solve critical challenges across various fields that apply and benefit from AI.

For more information about Morpheo's network of sleep explorers, visit:morpheo.co

About Rythm
Rythm is a neurotechnology company that aims to improve health and quality of life by transforming the way people understand the brain. The team includes global experts in sleep medicine, neuroscience, engineering, machine learning, design and advanced computing. Rythm's initial product, Dreem, the first active wearable device that increases sleep quality, was launched via the limited series Dreem First program in 2016. Based in Paris and San Francisco, Rythm works in close collaboration with top research institutes and hospitals to unlock the potential of neuroscience. The company has raised substantial funding from investors, awards and government grants to support a world-class team of more than 70 people. For more information, visit www.dreem.com.

About École Polytechnique
École Polytechnique is the leading French institute which combines top-level research, academics, and innovation at the cutting-edge of science and technology. Its various undegraduate and graduate-level programs – Bachelor's degree, Ingénieur Polytechnicien, Master's, Graduate Degree, PhD program and PhD– are highly selective and promote a culture of excellence with a strong emphasis on science, anchored in humanist traditions. As a widely internationalized university, École Polytechnique offers a variety of international programs and attracts a growing number of foreign students and researchers from around the globe (currently 30% of students and 39% of faculty members). École Polytechnique offers an exceptional education to prepare bright men and women to excel in high-level key positions and lead complex and innovative projects which meet the challenges of 21st century society, all while maintaining a keen sense of their civil and social responsibilities. With its 22 laboratories, 21 of which are joint research units with the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), École Polytechnique Research Center explores the frontiers of interdisciplinary knowledge to provide major contributions to science, technology, and society. École Polytechnique is a founding member of Université Paris-Saclay.

About Université Paris Descartes
With its nine Training and research departments (UFR) and its Institute of Technology (IUT), Paris Descartes University encompasses all the fields of knowledge of human and health sciences. It is the only university of the Ile-de-France region to offer medical, pharmaceutical and odontological studies; its health department is renowned in Europe and in the whole world for the high quality of its training and the excellence of its research.
Paris Descartes University is a key contributor to French public research, especially in the field of health science.

Research at PDU revolves around various scientific issues. It is conducted by more than 4,000 persons affiliated to 85 laboratories, which more particularly interact within federative (Federative Institutes of Research) or multidisciplinary structures (Paris Descartes University Institutes, top thematic focuses). Strategic tools (platforms) are made available to researchers.

Inside the University Paris Descartes, the Team VIFASOM, a research team dedicated to explore both sleep epidemiology and the effects of sleep restriction in humans would be in charge of the clinical expertise of the Sleepio project and the development of worldwide sleep collaboration on expertising major sleep database around the world. VIFASOM Team located in the Hôtel Dieu Paris Descartes center includes 40 reseachers from the fields of medicine, neurosciences, engineering, statistics. He would concentrate by using the platform to help the diagnosis of major sleep disorders such as insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, circadian disorders, hypersomnia.
www.sommeil-vigilance.fr

SOURCE Rythm