See what’s goin’ down in Motown; a huge leap in health diagnostics & much more
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Dear reader: Our thoughts are with our neighbors in Tennessee today as they recover from devastating tornadoes. If anyone wants to donate money for relief, you can do so through the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee's Emergency Response Fund.
“Born and raised in South Detroit.” – erroneous lyric from Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing"
Today’s itinerary:
WHEELS DOWN: DETROIT
Detroit takes flight! 
Photo by Kemboslice for Shutterstock
(Editor's note: Steve Perry thought "South Detroit" sounded good for his song, even though there is no "South" Detroit.)
Less than a decade ago, the Motor City seemed headed for the scrapyard. Detroit’s unemployment rate was twice the national average, nearly 80,000 buildings stood abandoned, half the city’s parks had been shuttered and only six in 10 streetlights worked. Oh, and the city faced debts of some $20 billion (or more than $28,000 per resident).
That massive debt led the city to declare bankruptcy in 2013, making it the largest American city ever to throw in the shop towel. In approving the bankruptcy filing, Gov. Rick Snyder wrote, “I know many will see this as a low point in the city’s history.” But then he wrote this: “If so, I think it will also be the foundation of the city’s future.”
Turns out that was more than just political happy talk. Just seventeen months later, Detroit emerged from bankruptcy and began working to regain its place among America’s great cities. As Mayor Mike Duggan said the following year, “This city is on the high road, and we want the rest of the world to come here and see it. Everybody in the world has a soft spot for an underdog.”
There’s little doubt that Detroit is “on the rise,” as a recent report from the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC) declares.
Detroit by the numbers
That DEGC report highlights some impressive statistics about Detroit:
And affordable housing isn’t the only thing encouraging newcomers and expats alike (yes, Detroiters uses that term) to give the city a second look. According to CBRE, office space in Detroit runs $20.46/square foot/year, compared with $65.16 in San Francisco and $74.00 in New York City. In other words, you can pick a corner office overlooking the Detroit River or a windowless cubicle in Manhattan.
Among Detroit’s key sectors are automotive and advanced mobility and advanced manufacturing (no surprise), but also medicine, food processing and “emerging industries.” Like most heartland cities, Detroit is easily accessible to most of the country, but it can also boast proximity to our neighbor to the north. In fact, Michigan lies within 500 miles of half the U.S. and Canadian populations.
Detroit is the first U.S. city to be named a “City of Design” by UNESCO. Leading the charge for that designation was Design Core (formerly the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, or DC3), which bills itself as “the central hub for Detroit’s design community” and which has helped more than 250 businesses start, grow or land in the city.
Beyond downtown
While much of the attention goes to downtown, Detroit is taking a holistic approach to revitalizing a city that covers more real estate than Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco combined—138.77 square miles if you’re keeping score at home. Today, the city’s planning department is focusing on revitalizing—or maybe reimagining—neighborhoods across the city.
While the neighborhood’s revitalization is still a work in progress, it reflects how Detroit is rising from the ashes. As one local leader put it: ”trust your gut, take the hits that come at you and get it done.”
HEALTH RESEARCH
Remote health test results in 'spit' second 
UC professor Chong Ahn and his graduate student Sthitodhi Ghosh; photo courtesy University of Cincinnati
A mobile health tool developed by University of Cincinnati's smartphone lab can diagnose illnesses such as Coronavirus.
Professor Chong Ahn, an electrical and biomedical engineering professor in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, has designed a tiny portable lab device that plugs into a phone. With a single drop of blood or saliva on a custom plastic lab chip UC designed, the device smaller than a credit card can diagnose infectious diseases.
It’s a rapid diagnostic tool you can use at home. The device is accurate, simple to use, and inexpensive. “The performance is comparable to laboratory tests and the cost is cheaper,” Ahn said. “We wanted to make it simple so anyone could use it without training or support.”
Ahn is pursuing a patent to commercialize his device. Medical diagnostics company MiCo BioMed, which has offices in Cincinnati, could be interested. “My dream for the rest of my career at UC is to improve public and mental health by providing a new mobile health tool,” he said. UC honored Ahn last year as a distinguished research professor.
FDA approves 3D-printed airway stents 
Image courtesy Cleveland Clinic
The FDA has approved the use of patient-specific, 3D-printed airway stents for widespread implantation, a major breakthrough for people suffering from serious breathing disorders. Standard airway stents come pre-made, in limited sizes that may or may not fit well with a person's unique anatomy. Since no two airways are exactly alike, the use of conventional, ill-fitting stents can introduce a number of problems, including stent kinking, mucus impaction, and complications with the tissue surrounding the stents.
The bespoke stents, developed by Cleveland Clinic physician Tom Gildea, MD, are created from detailed CT scans and 3D visualization software that maps a patient's airways allowing for a perfect fit, extending the life of the silicone implants by a factor of four over their conventional counterparts.
Gildea noted, “Breathing is something many people take for granted, but for many of these patients, every breath can be a struggle. It's been gratifying to see patients receiving the customized stents feeling relief right away.”
IU discovers more genomic locations tied to skin cancer Researchers at IU School of Medicine recently discovered eight new locations on the human genome that are tied to a risk of squamous cell skin cancer. The researchers, led by Jiali Han, PhD, confirmed previous findings of 14 locations, bringing the total to 22. The team analyzed 20,000 squamous cell skin cancer cases and 680,000 controls, with over a third of the genomic data coming from 23andMe research participants.
“This is the largest genetic-associated study for squamous cell carcinoma of the skin,” Han said. “Our multidisciplinary research sheds light on new biology and the etiology of squamous cell carcinoma, confirming some important genes and also identifying genes involved in this particular cancer development.”
The researchers are expanding their population sample in an effort to locate additional risk locations. They may have their work cut out for them. The 22 locations identified so far account for only 8.5% of the “heritable risk for squamous cell skin cancer.”
FINAL APPROACH
Finally! An AI to connect moms with flexible employers Suma, a newly minted Oklahoma City startup, has apparently found an “untapped niche.” The company, which helps stay-at-home moms find employers offering flexible work opportunities, launched with 300 women already signed up.
Co-founder and CEO Ally Myers, who graduated last year from an accelerator program run by StitchCrew, saw a need to connect mothers eager to return to the workforce with companies that were willing to help the women balance work and home life.
And instead of going the traditional resume route, which Myers says “fails to capture the hard-earned life skills that truly shape a person and contribute to the type of employee that they will be,” Suma job candidates take a skills test, record a video, and share their story. Potential employers provide details about their company culture and what they’re looking for in an employee. Then Suma uses artificial intelligence to sort through the job seekers' talents and the companies' needs to find the best matches.
Although Suma’s initial focus is on Oklahoma City, it plans to expand to Tulsa and Dallas.
IN-FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
Useless information that is strangely fascinating.
We’re taking a different track today on the trivia. We want to see if you can match the university with the Fast Future city in which it resides. (And, don’t get your hopes up, we’ve purposefully avoided those schools with the city in its name.)
Click here for today's answers.
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