Hi, I am Diego. I am an entrepreneur, researcher, and engineer passionate about healthcare innovation. I believe that the way to create amazing products and services is by building and developing teams with passion and a shared purpose to make our world a better place.
My journey
After working as an engineer on banking, government, and education projects, I returned to school for my Master’s Degree. Thanks to Dr. Marcela Hernandez, I fell in love with Biomedical Engineering! During this time, I studied computer vision, augmented reality, and image processing, among other exciting topics. My master’s degree allowed me to travel to France and Australia, where I worked on healthcare projects. Then, I moved back to Canada and did my Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Terry Peters. There, I studied epilepsy and applied machine learning techniques to localize the origin of seizures, improving surgical outcomes.
I did my postdoctoral fellowship at Western University in collaboration with IBM Research (Almaden). During this time, I developed deep-learning applications to solve medical imaging problems. One of my projects involved identifying anatomy in ultrasound to improve image-guided procedures (e.g., epidural injections and spinal taps). Another project focused on brain histology prediction from high-resolution MRI at 7 Tesla, which reduces the need for invasive brain biopsies.
In my free time, I wrote the WebGL beginners guide, which quickly became a primer textbook for learning computer graphics using the modern web stack. Later, I participated in a second book project entitled WebGL Insights, which showcased novel ideas in the world of web-based computer graphics.
Ezra: early cancer detection
In July 2018, I co-founded EZRA, where I served as Chief Technical Officer (CTO). Our mission was simple: help everybody in the world to find cancer early. At Ezra, I built the engineering and research teams from scratch, implementing state-of-the-art systems, cybersecurity, and regulatory practices to provide the best services to our patients.
In 2020, I led the team that obtained the first-ever prostate AI cleared by the FDA.
In 2021, we made it into Forbes AI Top 50: America’s most promising AI companies. Our innovations team created the Reporter AI, an AI that reads radiology reports and provides explanations or recommendations based on health findings.
Picture Health: navigating the oncology pathway
In May 2023, I joined Picture Health, a budding startup startup to accelerate oncology clinical care with technology. There, I lead an excellent team of engineers hyper-focused on this mission. As is the case for many people, cancer is a lived experience in my family, so for me, this is a personal endeavour.
At Picture Health, we are developing novel AI biomarkers using multimodal data (genomics, proteomics, radiology, pathology, etc). Something that sets us apart is that our biomarkers are explainable, which is a key aspect for clinicians and cancer researchers.
I am very excited about this new adventure.
Mentoring and participating in the startup ecosystem
I am a mentor at the Creative Destruction Labs at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, where I support startups in the healthcare and health-tech space. This gratifying role allows me to give back to the community, supporting entrepreneurs through the different stages of company building.
I write the Digital Reflections newsletter, which shares personal experiences and covers current science, technology, and business topics. You can find it in substack at digirex.substack.com. I also have a digital presence on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Thank you for stopping by ⛵️