JHU student team advances to finals of $10M Tricorder XPRIZE competition

A team of 19 Johns Hopkins undergraduates just got one step closer to winning a coveted $10 million prize.

Aezon Health is now one of 10 finalist teams in the running for the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, a three-and-a-half-year international contest to develop small, consumer-friendly self-diagnosis "tricorders" a la the fictional gizmo used by Dr. Leonard McCoy of Star Trek fame.

The Hopkins students advanced in the competition with their mobile device they say can diagnose 15 different health conditions—including strep throat, pneumonia, mononucleosis, urinary tract infections, and even HIV—based on vital signs and other data.

Sixteen of the students are from the Whiting School's applied mathematics and statistics, biomedical engineering, computer science, electrical, materials science, and mechanical engineering departments. The Krieger School students represent the biophysics and neuroscience departments. Aezon is the only undergraduate team in the competition. The other finalist teams hail from the United States, the UK, Canada, India, Ireland, and Taiwan.

The final round of judging begins in March 2015 with the submission of the finalists' devices for consumer testing, and the winners will be announced in January 2016.