News

Toilet in Bathroom

| Duke Today

'Smart Toilet' Uses Artifical Intelligence to Monitor Bowel Health

An artificial intelligence tool being developed by Duke scientists can be added to the standard toilet to help analyze patients’ stool and give gastroenterologists the information they need to provide appropriate treatment for chronic issues such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and…

| Duke University Bass Connections

Two Graduate Students Honored for Their Outstanding Mentorship

Jin Zhou (Ph.D. Student) and Bridget Eklud (J.D. Student) are the winners of the 2021 Bass Connections Award for Outstanding Mentorship. Zhou's research focuses on the intersection of machine learning and health data science, and he has been working with several undergradue students as…

| Pratt School of Engineering

Comparing the Swab to the Sewer

Using established methods for screening human sewage for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, Duke University is piloting a study to compare what can be learned from sewage with what can be learned from a rigorous nasal swab testing program. The university has been…

| Pratt School of Engineering

From Chopsticks and Cardboard to Functioning Prototype

Resourceful undergraduates dove into a Bass Connections project aiming to improve GI heath, designing an automated test strip dispenser for their team.

Lab Photo

Bass Connections Students Return to Advance Smart Toilet Research, Remotely

The Smart Toilet offers insight into what’s happening in the gut, enabling early warning of colorectal cancer and management of gastrointestinal (GI) disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease.

Individual on Toilet

Crowdsourcing our Way through Summer

“Crowdsourcing of Stool Images for Algorithm Development” - a research study led by Sonia Grego, PhD, Director of the Duke Smart Toilet Lab and Deborah Fisher, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine in Gastroenterology.

| BBC CrowdScience

Does My Toilet Make Sense?

Despite being a universal need, talking about our toilet use and the infrastructure that aids us remains somewhat taboo. Whilst sectors like telecommunications and computing have undergone rapid transformations over the past century, the flush toilet and wastewater system have mostly remained…

Bass Connections Students

| Bass Connections

Smart Toilet Saves Vital Health Data from Getting Flushed

BAsSome of the most important information about our health comes from an unexpected and decidedly icky source. Our daily excreta (yes, the feces and urine we flush away every day) can actually tell us a lot about our health and help us monitor our bodies for disease.

Presentation

What do Bojangles, Thixotropicity, and Miso Paste have in Common?

Bass Connections team started the day by discussing the Bristol Stool Chart, thixotropicity (a time dependent shear-thinning property - think ketchup), and the benefits of working with miso paste as a surrogate for human feces.

Bass Students Explore Innovation and the Market

Bass Students Explore Innovation and the Market

Bass Students Explore Innovation and the Market

Bass Connections Students at the Center for WaSH-AID

Welcoming Bass Connections Students

Bass Connections Students at the Center for WaSH-AID

student in lab

| MEDx

Learning About Health Through Waste

Our daily excreta – feces and urine – can tell us a lot about our health, but, so far, testing has been under-developed for precision health monitoring. Part of the problem is the collection process. A newly funded Bass Connections project team is looking to change that. Geoff Ginsburg, director…