Grete Kikas: in Forbes’ 30 under 30

Each year, Forbes publish “a collection of bold risk-takers putting a new twist on the old tools of the trade”. This year, TalTech´s Health Care Technology student Grete Kikas was nominated and chosen into the Forbes under 30 list in the Science & Health care.

“Grete Kikas founded Diagnostic Match, to come up with a better way to identify patients who are at risk for contracting HIV. They do this with an algorithm that analyses patients’ health data and looks for HIV indicator diseases that shows doctors, which patients are in the risk group and need testing. They are currently leading the first Estonian HIV risk group based clinical research study in cooperation with 12 public health organizations and includes more than 124,000 patients.” *Source*

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We have conducted a short interview with Grete about her studies at TalTech.

Grete, what were you doing before entering TalTech´s Health Care Technology programme?

I finished my bachelor studies at TalTech’s School of Business and Governance. Entrepreneurship combined with healthcare and technology has always been one of my interests and after graduating my bachelor’s — HCT master’s programme seemed perfect next step for me, where all three aspects will be covered.

What made you found the company Diagnostic Match?

I participated HIV-digital hackathon with my colleagues (Kristjan Krass and Diana Ingerainen) from the Estonian Family Doctors’ Society. Within one year after the HIV-digital accelerator started we validated the idea and solution with problem owners (family doctors) and governmental institutions, developed a Diagnostic Match 1.0 prototype, which was already available for 85% of the Estonian family doctors. That made me believe that with the Diagnostic Match’s team, we can achieve anything if we set our focus on it.

How are your study and research at TalTech connected to the achievements of Diagnostic Match, and eventually you being selected to the Forbes list?

My research at TalTech and the topic of my Master’s Thesis are strongly interlinked with the need to build a solid evidence-based research platform for Diagnostic Match. Running a healthcare start-up is a constant battle to back up your ideas and solutions with evidence-based research. Currently, Diagnostic March is leading the first Estonian HIV risk group-based clinical research study in co-operation with 12 public health organisations, and includes more than 124,000 patients. This novel approach where a young health tech company is doing so large scale pilot study got recognized by Forbes.

What would you say to current and future HCT students at TalTech in choosing appropriate research direction?

As a HCT student, I considered throughout my studies at least 4 research directions that might be interesting areas to study further. Being a very practical person, I always wanted that my chosen research will be practically beneficial and something will change due to the outcomes of my research. Therefore I suggest to everyone who is choosing their research topics right now or later, that it is so much easier to focus on a research and motivate yourself when there are outcomes that can change at least someone’s life or decisions they are making.

What are the next steps for your company and your own academic development?

We are publishing our pilot study results on June 2019 and will start to develop our own technological platform for smart algorithms. As this whole HIV indicator disease-guided testing approach combined with technological assistance area is so little researched, who knows…maybe PhD studies are calling for me?