This Virginia startup believes it can help patients with scoliosis avoid painful surgery

By Kaitlynn R. Copinger, Richmond Inno

When Alexander Singh’s younger brother underwent spinal fusion surgery to correct his scoliosis, it was a painful case of history repeating itself. Years earlier, his mother received the same invasive surgery.

A student at the University of Virginia at the time, Alexander Singh felt called to action.

“I’m getting a degree in biomedical engineering,” he said in a recent Zoom interview. “I can’t just sit around and watch people suffer from this surgery and not do anything about it.”

And so Minimally Invasive Spinal Technology, LLC — MIST for short — was born.

MIST is developing software to fix what Singh said are less-than-exact diagnostic capabilities that often lead to unnecessary spinal fusion surgery. The company’s software uses machine learning and computer vision to create a predictive algorithm, reducing the error range for diagnosis. Greater diagnostic accuracy, Singh believes, will lead physicians to direct more patients toward preventive care, rather than surgery.

Read the entire piece here.