Nanowear's Venk Varadan on the Next-Gen of Wearable Technology

The Harry Glorikian Show

Many of us wear wireless, battery-powered medical sensors on our wrists in the form of our smartwatches or fitness trackers. But someday soon, similar sensors may be woven into our very clothing. Harry's guest this week, Nanowear CEO Venk Varadan, explains that his company's microscopic nanosensors, when embedded in fabric and worn against the skin, can pick up electrical changes that reveal heart rate, heart rhythms, respiration rate, and physical activity and relay the information to doctors in real time. And that kind of technology could move us one step closer to a world where we're far more intimately connected to the medical system and doctors can catch health problems before they turn into disasters.

Nanowear's leading product is a sash called SimpleSense that fits over the shoulder and around the torso. Last month the company won FDA approval for the software package that goes with the SimpleSense sash and turns it into a diagnostic and predictive device. It's currently being tested in a network of clinics as a way to monitor and manage congestive heart failure.

Varadan trained in biochemistry at Duke, earned an MBA at Columbia, and spent about a decade in pharmaceutical sales and marketing and technology investment banking before co-founding Brooklyn, NY-based Nanowear in 2014. His father Vijay Varadan, MD, PhD, now an emeritus professor in the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State, is the other co-founder and the company's chief innovation officer. "Nanowear's technology was actually the culmination of his life's work," Venk says.

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Full Transcript

Harry Glorikian: Hello. I’m Harry Glorikian. Welcome to The Harry Glorikian Show, the interview podcast that explores how technology is changing everything we know about healthcare.

Artificial intelligence. Big data. Predictive analytics. In fields like these, breakthroughs are happening way faster than most people realize.

If you want to be proactive about your own health and the health of your loved ones, you’ll need to learn everything you can about how medicine is changing and how you can take advantage of all the new options.

Explaining this approaching world is the mission of my new book, The Future You. And it’s also our theme here on the show, where we bring you conversations with the innovators, caregivers, and patient advocateswho are transforming the healthcare system and working to push it in positive directions.

Everyone’s used to the idea that if they’re being treated in a hospital, they’ll pr