Med student’s AI invention is finalist in national contest

• For Journalists
• News Releases
• Latest Releases
• News Release

Med student's AI invention is finalist in national contest

AI chatbot aims to make blood test results clearer for millions of patients

• Third-year medical student is one of only eight finalists nationwide
• Winning team could secure $125,000 in VC funding
• Lipid Llama uses AI to explain lipid-panel results in plain language

CHICAGO --- Medical student Tyler Smith has advanced to the finals of InnoFest, a new national competition hosted by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) that showcases innovations from future physicians.

Smith's invention, Lipid Llama, is one of only eight finalists selected from over 30 teams. Smith qualified after pitching his invention virtually in February to a panel of judges made up of healthcare and tech experts. The final round will be an in-person pitch presentation in Washington, D.C., this Friday, April 18, starting at 5:30 p.m. ET.

At stake is a potential $125,000in venture capital funding. "That's more money than I've ever seen in my life," Smith said with a laugh. "But this means a tremendous amount because it's the biggest project of my career. And we want to see this through."

Lipid Llama is a multilingual AI chatbot app designed to help patients understand their lipid panel - a common blood test that measures different types of fats, including cholesterol and triglycerides, to determine the risk of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases.

Patients can ask Lipid Llama questions based on their test results. The chatbot's answers draw from the PREVENT calculatordeveloped by the American Heart Association.

The app serves as an extension of the doctor's office, especially for patients who leave appointments with lingering questions.

"There are so many tests, especially in the primary care setting, that when patients receive their lipid-panel results, they may have only limited time to discuss it with their doctor," said Smith, a Chicago-area native and third-year student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine who holds a master's degree in Artificial Intelligence from Northwestern.

"There are millions of lipid tests run every single year," Smith said. "And while it's a popular test, it's also a low-risk one. We're not going to run the risk of telling somebody with the help of AI that they have cancer or a significant disease."

Smith has poured "hundreds of hours" into developing the app. "I can't even tell you. I think maybe my girlfriend would give you a better answer about the late nights spent on Lipid Llama," he said.

As for the name?

"Explaining the joke is always the worst part," he said with a smile. "In the machine learning community, there's a family of large language models called Llama models from Meta AI. It's an inside joke that gives us a fun avatar."

Dr. Adrienne Kline, a professor and mentor to Tyler, praised both the innovation and the student behind it.

"It's always so rewarding as a professor to see young minds taking up this field and bringing forward new ideas. Tyler's work is a perfect example of how medical students can shape the future of patient care," said Kline, a research assistant professor of cardiac surgery at Feinberg.

Tyler Smith and Dr. Kline are available to speak to media ahead of the finals on April 18.