Youshaa El-AbedYoushaa El-Abed will explain his idea for a platform to match patients with clinical trials that may offer treatments during Founders Pitch Day, August 1 at EPICentre.

Network aims to match subjects to treatment trials

His extracurricular activities drew biology student Youshaa El-Abed into his latest venture: a start-up called Clinical Trial Network Inc., which hopes to help recruit subjects for biomedical research.

“I spent most of my undergraduate working in professor Lisa Porter’s cancer research lab,” El-Abed says. “That led me to taking on the role as president of UWindsor’s chapter for Friends of Doctors Without Borders. This experience led me to work with the Essex County Medical Society, which allowed me to gain further understanding of how the healthcare system operates within the local community.”

He saw there is no mechanism directing potential subjects to thousands of clinical trials looking to improve treatments, which is where he hopes to come in.

“The objective of our project is to develop a software platform that serves as a tool to match patients with clinical trials,” he says. “The software will take general health information, input by patients, and run an algorithm that sifts through the criteria of available clinical trials using public databases. Based on the patient’s medical conditions, they are then matched with potentially eligible clinical trials.”

He is working with the Summer Founders Program of the Entrepreneurship Practice and Innovation Centre (EPICentre) to develop his product, and will be one of those pitching a business idea to a panel of judges, hoping to qualify for a $3,500 award.

The RBC EPIC Founders Pitch Day — Wednesday, August 1, on the second floor of the Joyce Entrepreneurship Centre — is open to the public. Find details and an online registration form on the EPICentre website.