SBIR Phase II: Developing a new platform technology for 3D ultrasound imaging

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发一种用于非侵入性临床前成像的新技术并将其商业化。这一平台技术将用于疾病研究或药物开发。该项目将进一步开发和验证基于三维(3D)超声的成像平台，这是现有全身成像方式的低成本、高通量替代方案，并将比目前的二维(2D)超声方法提供更高的灵敏度和视野。开发的技术将降低全身临床前成像的成本，并使较小的研究机构能够获得这项技术。为临床前疾病和药物开发研究提供更多低成本的成像工具可以加快改善人类健康的进展，同时减少生命科学实验室的成本负担。拟议的项目解决了二维超声因其足够的分辨率、高通量和低成本而成为临床前研究的首选成像方式的问题，但它存在用户变异性和视野不足的问题。研究目标将是继续开发和验证3D超声系统，以克服用户可变性和视野不足的挑战。具体的技术目标将是改进系统的硬件和软件以提高吞吐量，将系统组件集成到一个紧密面向客户的产品中，并针对预期的临床前成像应用对系统进行校准和验证。预期结果会是一项新颖的技术吗？一种自动化的3D临床前超声系统，将大大提高临床前超声成像的性能和能力，同时将保留超声成像的低成本和高通量特征。这项新技术将满足世界各地几乎每个学术研究机构以及制药和合同研究组织的需求。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is the development and commercialization of a new technology for non-invasive preclinical imaging. This platform technology will be used in studies of disease or in in drug development. The project will further develop and validate an imaging platform based on three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound, which is a low cost, high-throughput alternative to existing whole-body imaging modalities, and will provide more sensitivity and field of view than current two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound approaches. The technology developed will reduce costs of whole-body preclinical imaging, and enable access to this technology to smaller research organizations. Increased availability of a low-cost imaging tool for preclinical disease and drug development studies could accelerate progress in improving human health while reducing cost burdens on life science labs.The proposed project addresses the problem that 2D ultrasound is a preferred imaging modality in preclinical studies due to the adequate resolution, high throughput, and low cost; however, it suffers from user variability and inadequate field of view. The research objectives will be to continue the development and validation of a 3D ultrasound system which overcomes challenges of user variability and inadequate field of view. Specific technical goals will be to improve both the hardware and software of the system for increased throughput, integrating the system components into a cohesive customer-facing product, and calibrating and validating the system for its intended preclinical imaging application. Expected results will be a novel technology ? an automated 3D preclinical ultrasound system, which will substantially improve the performance and capabilities of preclinical ultrasound imaging, yet will retain the low-cost and high throughput characteristics of ultrasound imaging. This new technology will fill a need present in nearly every academic research institution as well as pharmaceutical and contract research organizations worldwide.