Portable Perfusion Monitor Team for National I-Corps Program

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project, based on a portable blood perfusion monitor, lies in its likelihood of reaching new markets and applications beyond current blood perfusion monitor systems. This could have a significant societal impact, as this technology's lower cost compared to other available systems will allow for more routine blood perfusion monitoring (e.g. in preventative medicine), which could improve public health. Further, the compactness and portability of this technology, along with its related elimination of the need for a standalone diagnostic technician, makes its use in healthcare applications in remote and field locations highly feasible. Due to the potential to reach new customers and applications, this technology could be disruptive by addressing unmet needs in diagnostic medicine.This I-Corps project is based around a portable blood perfusion monitor device. The device uses laser speckle imaging technology, which images blood flow non-invasively by reflecting low-power laser light off of tissue and into a camera. By capturing several images in rapid succession and comparing the frames, regions with relative motion (in this case, blood flow) can be visually mapped onto an image of the tissue. The intellectual merit of this portable perfusion device is that it utilizes a new method of processing the data to compare the sequential frames, this new method requiring substantially lower computing power than existing methods. As a result, mini-processors can be used in place of full computer processors, allowing for miniaturization of the device and reduction of the material costs. As well, the device is capable of attaching to existing surgical equipment and functions in real time during surgery, shortening time needed for the surgical process and improving timeliness and quality of associated data. Various prototypes of this device have been tested in mice, and the results demonstrate the ability of this device to provide detailed maps of blood flow, including micro-vessels.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.