2025/04/03 | Grants & Awards |
New ARTORG Venture Fellows: Samuel Knobel and Amith Kamath
The fourth cohort of the Venture Fellowship program at the University of Bern and the Inselspital were chosen - among them, two of ARTORG's own. Dr. Samuel Knobel, researcher of the Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation group, and Amith Kamath, PhD student of the Medical Image Analysis group, are two of five recipients of the Fellowship.
The Venture Fellowship Program at the University of Bern enables young researchers each year to continue their translational research for one year. With healthcare being an important pillar of any thriving society, there is always a need for innovative ideas in this field. The latest recipients of the Venture Fellowship at the University of Bern and the Inselspital aim to deliver innovative solutions to a broad variety of healthcare solutions.
This year's cohort of scientists includes Dr. Samuel Knobel, from the Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation group, and Amith Kamath, from the Medical Image Analysis group.
Dr. Samuel Knobel - DextEgg
In his research at the Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation group, Samuel is concerned with the deterioration of fine motor skills. Approximately 300'000 people in Switzerland are impacted in their daily life by fine motor impairments due to neurological conditions, aging, or injuries.
With DextEgg, Samuel aims to bring a new approach to fine motor skill rehabilitation not just for patients but for therapists and clinicians as well.
(©Samuel Knobel)
DextEgg is a handheld egg-shaped device designed for both clinical and home use. The software tied to the haptic element enables monitoring for therapists and offers engaging and fun rehabilitation exercises through integrated games.
DextEgg and its monitoring software (©Samuel Knobel/Nic Krummenacher)
DextEgg makes rehabilitation more exciting with its games (©Samuel Knobel/Nic Krummenacher)
The current standard of rehabilitation is found lacking by all parties involved. Clinics lack resources to accompany patients regularly in their training - and home training is frequently abandoned or poorly implemented due to its monotonous approach. Therapists also lack the ability to monitor home training and track progress. DextEgg aims to solve the problems of fine motor skill rehabilitation on both sides of patient care.
The UniBE Venture Fellowship allows Samuel to further develop the software of DextEgg and - in collaboration with his project-partner and UniBE Inno Grant recipient Nic Krummenacher, whose focus is on developing the existing hardware further - get DextEgg production-ready for certification and manufacturing.
Amith Kamath - ContourAid
Amith is a PhD student in the Medical Image Analysis group, where he is concerned with the application of artificial intelligence and deep learning models to medical image analysis in radiotherapy.
Almost 50% of all cancer patients undergo some form of radiotherapy during their treatment. With his project ContourAid, Amith aims to revolutionize radiotherapy by streamlining the treatment planning process with AI. Currently, the process of contouring - where radiation oncologists manually draw contours around tumors and healthy structures - and treatment planning based on these contours, are slow and repetitive, delaying care and adding to the clinician workloads.
Amith at the Falling Walls Science Summit in Berlin (©Amith Kamath)
Amith is attempting to solve this issue by combining automated contouring and its quality assurance with real-time dose prediction - a first-of-its-kind platform that aims to speed up planning tenfold while enhancing safety and treatment accuracy. With 19 million new cancer cases annually and a growing radiotherapy market, the demand for faster, more efficient solutions is urgent.
(©CAIM, University of Bern)
With the UniBE Venture Fellowship, Amith has the opportunity to focus on ContourAid full-time and continue in his development process to eventually bring this tool to market, where it can support radiation oncologists in their work and improve cancer patients' healthcare.
We wish Samuel and Amith all the best with their projects and congratulate them on this great achievement!
The ARTORG also congratulates the other three Venture Fellows 2025: Hang Gander-Bui (Tissue Medicine and Pathology), Hanspeter Hess (AI in Orthopaedics Group) and Valentina Huwiler (Infectious Diseases).
For more information on the Venture Fellowship Program at this year's recipients, read the official press release here: Announcement Innovation Office.
