California's Anthem Blue Cross and San Benito Medical Associates are studying how a smartphone app can reduce childhood obesity. The duo launched a pilot study using Kurbo Health, an online and mobile weight loss program tailored specifically for kids. They aim to show how mobile experiences and personal coaching can increase physical activity, improve nutrition and ultimately decrease weight. They expect the project will take a year to reach a sufficient sample size. Release
> Invitae ($NVTA) provided information on more than 10,000 clinically observed genetic variants to the ClinVar Project, which was set up by the National Center for Biotechnology Information to gather every known relationship between genetic variants and disease. Release
> SRS Medical won a CE mark for its Spanner Temporary Prostatic Stent, an alternative to indwelling and intermittent urinary catheters for patients with bladder outlet obstruction. Release
> In Rice University's DREAM 9 challenge, 31 teams developed tools to predict outcomes for leukemia patients based on training data from 191 patients. The training data included demographic information and data on signaling protein pathways that are believed to play a role in the disease. They then tested their tech on data from 100 leukemia patients that did not include outcomes. Release