Softscope Medical Technologies - Colonoscopy is considered the gold standard for colon cancer screening. It is also the only way to biopsy and remove pre-cancerous polyps and early cancers from inside the colon without resorting to open surgery. The CDC estimates over 14 million colonoscopies were performed in the U.S. in 2002. Significant increases are expected as the baby boom generation adds 2 million people a year to the eligible U.S. population. Softscope is developing a disposable accessory for use with existing colonoscopes that will make colonoscopy more comfortable for patients, easier and faster for physicians and eliminate the need for I.V. sedation.  www.softscopemed.com

NotMD is a web site that addresses the fundamental problem of medical misdiagnosis, a problem that has received relatively little attention from the medical community but which both anecdotal evidence and the medical literature suggests is a factor in more than 50,000 deaths per year in the United States.  NotMD allows both consumers and medical professionals to quickly answer the question, “What medical conditions could cause the symptoms this person is experiencing?”  Think of it as Google for symptoms.  Dr. David Gardiner is the founder of NotMD, a medical information retrieval start-up.  Prior to founding NotMD, Dr. Gardiner was a co-founder of Net Perceptions, the personalization technology company, working in technical sales and consulting roles.  At Net Perceptions he consulted with many of the famous (and infamous) companies of the dot-com era including Amazon, CDnow, HomeGrocer, and Living.com.  Prior to that, he managed the creation of a large semantic network of technical terminology at Teltech.  Dr. Gardiner has a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and information retrieval from the University of Minnesota.  www.notmd.com