The carbon element is the chief component in any life form. Carbon is the central element, without which life as we know it would not exist. Any compound that consists of carbon atoms is generally termed as an organic compound; these make up the cells and other structures of organisms and carryout the metabolic processes. It is an essential part of our DNA, lipids, and cells. It’s only fitting then that a company, which focuses on digitizing, analyzing, and understanding life, reflects life’s essential component through its name, iCarbonX.
The company is led by an individual who has done more to scale the application of genetics around the world: Jun Wang. He is the Founder and CEO of iCarbonX. He is a top Chinese researcher and former Head of Beijing Genome Institute. Wang was trained in artificial intelligence before he co-founded Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) in 1999. As CEO he built BGI into a premier global genome sequencing center. He is also credited with sequencing the genome of the first Asian person, the rice plant, SARS, the giant panda, silkworms, pigs, chickens, goats and the human gut microbiome. And he is a significant contributor to the Human Genome Project and to the rice genome sequencing initiative.
As one of the world’s leading scientists, Wang could have stayed in genomics, and remained at the top of a science he helped to commercialize and consumerize. But in 2015, he founded iCarbonX to create a future in which people can drive their own health and defeat disease with advanced data and AI. Now, he has assembled the best set of partners to operationalize his vision.
He believes that digitization of health information is crucial for the choice of medicine, health, and treatments. “It’s essential that the population digitizes their health data because it provides individuals with greater knowledge of their own health, and the data provides doctors with better insight into their patients. Today, very few people know their own genetics or have insight into their digital health data. They do not know their gut bacteria or heart function and do not record dietary habits systematically. But by digitizing data, people will be able to get better treatments in the future.” asserts Wang.
iCarbonX is a technology company, combining advances in artificial intelligence, disease management, multiomics, and immuneomic profile technology to fundamentally change how people understand their present, to manage their futures. It has built a platform of deep biological digitization to analyze and deliver precision solutions, services, and applications for any moment in life’s journey; from wellness, skincare, fitness, and nutrition to prevention, heath care, condition management and outcome achievement.
Going Beyond Genetics
“What If?” A question that iCarbonX wishes to answer by going beyond genetics. To answer the million dollar questions of life, so that one doesn’t just choose the road less traveled, but the road that should be traveled; is the vision the company works towards. “All our individual paths will create a global map of health; parallel, intersecting and divergent.” says Wang. “This far-reaching and expansive atlas will forge an endlessly connected, cross-cultural community where everyone contributes to, learns about, and perpetually optimizes this experiment called life.”
The Journey of the Organization
iCarbonX was instituted in Shenzhen, China, in the year 2015. iCarbonX finished its Series A financing led by Tencent in the following year. The post investment value of iCarbonX reached $1 billion. Later that year, iCarbonX announced its acquisition of Imagu Vision Technologies and the establishment of iCarbonX-Israel R&D center.
iCarbonX Research Shenzhen, announced a collaboration with the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), in 2017. Meum™ which is the digital health management platform built up by iCarbonX, was officially released to the public, and its digital life ecosystem partners later that year.
Simultaneously the company announced its alliance with seven companies and that iCarbonX ecosystem has invested a total of nearly $400 million in the seven companies that form the alliance: SomaLogic, HealthTell, PatientsLikeMe, AOBiome, GALT, Imagu and Robustnique. This year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited iCarbonX, and it partnered with OP Financial and DaChan Food to Deploy Precision Nutrition Industry.
Meum: A Personal Health Guide for Individuals
Meum is a digital health management platform that helps people to easily create a digital profile of their lives, so they can understand and monitor their present health status, predict the trends, and improve their future through customized solutions around their health, aging, and disease.
Each user has a dedicated digital life account on the Meum platform. With it, they can record and display more than ten types of data from their comprehensive health exams — genes, metabolism, intestinal microbes, and phenotype data collected from iCarbonX’s one-stop smart devices.
The Smart Health Coach within the Meum App can then manage that comprehensive health data. One only needs to record one’s dietary and life habits through audio or photos; the Smart Health Coach will automatically analyze nutrition intake, measure balance level, alert are available for any kind of abnormality, and provide customized solutions.
AI Revolutionizing Healthcare
“AI system could learn to understand human health and human life better than we do.” says Wang. “The AI will try to draw a formula for life. Life is digital, like a computer program — if you want to understand the results of the programming, how the genes lead to phenotypes; it is sufficiently complicated for you to need an AI system to figure out the rules.”
iCarbonX is collecting every kind of data around an individual’s life. That includes genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, antibiotics, and microbiomes. It also includes smart devices checking everything around one’s lifestyle, diets, the environment data, and even your emotions and modes. “So we’re collecting everything around you.” quotes Wang.
Future of Healthcare Industry and iCarbonX
Applying digital technology in healthcare opens a lot of possibilities. In the future a lot of the digital technologies should be or has to be applied in healthcare, believes Wang. Because the doctor will know the patient better and the patient will know themselves better using these kinds of technologies.
If one wants to use a skincare product, one should know your skin first. “If you use a medicine for yourself, you should know your disease first.” says Wang. So one needs to digitalize where and what one wants. This will allow and help people, start to manage your digital life, not just manage ones’ life from pure instinct feelings, but actually from data. iCarbonX is just doing that. It will be more intelligent and easy to use for every individual.
