BioPharma

What if cancer could be detected using a $100 imaging system instead of the usual $100,000 equipment?

Researchers at MIT are looking to make cancer cell imaging not only much less expensive, but also much more convenient for testing in different parts of the world.

Physicians commonly use equipment that costs $100,000 do detect cancer in patients. Soon to be a very big waste of money? Looks like that could be the case.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are doing the same type of testing with technology, an imaging technique known as fluorescence lifetime imaging, and it only costs $100.

“Right now, the cost of the equipment is $100,000,” Ayush Bhandari, a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab and one of the system’s developers, told Boston Business Journal. “Whatever a biolab is, they will only share the resource. It slows down their research. But if you can show something consumer grade can be bought and be wired to do this imaging, not only is diagnosis sped up, it speeds up research.”

This would clearly lower costs, but also make diagnosing in developing countries much more practical.

The technology uses fluorophores, which are able to absorb light and then re-emit it a short time later — also known as the “lifetime” of the fluorophore. The time between absorption and emission of light can be altered in a predictable way by interactions with certain chemicals. In the presence of cancer cells, it takes longer for these fluorophores to absorb and emit light, and the technology to measure this in current microscopes is very expensive.

The MIT researchers have figured out how to use cheaper technology, actually similar to the Microsoft Kinect, and use a specific computer algorithm to get the same data.

As the Boston Business Journal reported:

Similar to Kinect technology, the time-of-flight sensor “sees” an image like a bat navigates through the air, using pulses that travel, bounce off objects, and then return. But rather than a bat using sonar, this time-of-flight technology uses pulses of light. Though the Kinect tool usually measures distance to an object, because time and distance are linearly related, the scientists are also able to measure time.

The problem is the sensor isn’t sensitive enough to measure such quick measures of time. As a result, researchers have found a way to send light waves at 50 different frequencies. With all that data, the computer can find the distance and the time measurements that fit the equation for all those measurements.

At MIT currently, there is a big intiative to look at how imaging using time-of-flight sensors can be improved, even cameras that can see around corners, for example.

“We’re exploring all the areas where time result imaging can benefit all imaging and prove results previously not possible,” Bhandari said.

Screenshot via Boston Business Journal

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