I-Corps: Noninvasive Detection System for Skin Disease

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是一种创新的、非侵入性的方法，它极大地加快了对广泛皮肤病的诊断过程，使初级保健医生、私人皮肤科医生、紧急护理中心以及患者受益。现有的诊断方法需要样品制备和从皮肤上去除组织，这可能会对疾病区域造成进一步的损害。所提出的方法将消除侵入性样本采集的需要，并允许初级保健医生和皮肤科医生在更早的阶段诊断和治疗各种皮肤病，如黑色素瘤、非黑色素瘤皮肤癌和蕈样真菌病。紧急护理中心也将受益于这种超快速诊断技术，通过立即评估紧急皮肤状况，如皮肤烧伤和炎症性皮肤病变。该方法还将消除患者因当前皮肤活检过程的侵入性而不愿及时寻求医疗护理的潜在意愿，并导致早期治疗和更好的预后。这个I-Corps项目开发了一种超快速、无创的人体皮肤三维荧光显微成像技术。这是通过(1)设计和演示用结构光照明捕获微观图像的硬件系统，以及(2)用于三维（3D）重建和图像处理以确定潜在皮肤病的创新算法来实现的。该技术可直接应用于活体皮肤，无需活检，大大减少了活检准备的延迟和实验室成本，有助于皮肤病的早期诊断。高分辨率3D图像提供了疾病皮肤形状和尺寸的精确测量。该系统的荧光功能表明皮肤区域异常代谢物的分布。形态学变化和异常代谢物的分布都可以作为早期判断皮肤疾病的关键参数。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is an innovative, noninvasive method that dramatically speeds up the diagnostic process for a broad spectrum of skin diseases, benefiting primary care physicians, private practice dermatologists, and urgent care centers, as well as the patients. The existing diagnostic methods require sample preparation and tissue removal from skin, potentially causing further damage to the disease area. The proposed method will eliminate the need for invasive sample collection, and allow primary care physicians and dermatologists to diagnose and treat various skin diseases, such as melanoma, non-melanoma skin cancer, and mycosis fungoides at a much earlier stage. Urgent care centers will also benefit from this ultrafast diagnostic technique, by immediately evaluating urgent skin conditions, such as skin burn and inflammatory skin lesions. The proposed approach will also eliminate the potential reluctance in patients - otherwise due to the invasive nature of current skin biopsy process - in seeking timely medical care, and lead to earlier treatment and better prognosis.This I-Corps project develops an ultrafast and noninvasive three-dimensional fluorescence microscopic imaging of live human skin. This is achieved by (1) the design and demonstration of the hardware system that captures microscopic image with structured light illumination, and (2) the innovative algorithm for three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction and image processing to determine potential skin disease. This technology can be applied directly on live human skin without biopsy, which greatly reduces the delay and laboratory cost for biopsy preparation and assisting diagnosis of skin disease at an earlier stage. The high-resolution 3D image provides an accurate measurement of the shape and dimensions of the disease skin. The fluorescence function of the system indicates the distribution of the abnormal metabolites of a skin area. Both of the morphological changes and the distribution of the abnormal metabolites can be used as key parameters to determine the skin disorder at an early stage.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.