SBIR Phase I: Transcranial Dynamic Focused Ultrasound for the Non-Invasive Opening of the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB)

SBIR 第一阶段：经颅动态聚焦超声非侵入性打开血脑屏障 (BBB)

• 批准号: 2014262
• 负责人: Bhaskar Ramamurthy
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: CORDANCE MEDICAL INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-05-15 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2014262&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Transcranial; Dynamic; Focused

This SBIR Phase I project aims to develop technology designed to provide physicians with a new capability to manage patients with brain diseases such as brain cancers, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. One reason brain disease is difficult to treat is the existence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) that prevents almost all therapeutic agents from reaching diseased tissue from blood. The proposed technology enables opening the BBB in a non-invasive manner with a system that is portable and may be deployed in an out-patient or a clinic setting. This system could impact the cost burden of managing patients with brain diseases and provide better quality of life. The proposed project develops methods to accurately direct focused beams of ultrasound to therapy targets within the patient’s brain from an array of ultrasound transducers embedded in a cap-like device conformed comfortably to a patient’s head. In the last several years, focused ultrasound with microbubbles (an FDA approved ultrasound contrast agent) has been used to transiently open the BBB to administer drugs or provide therapy. The proposed cap-like device includes mechanisms both to conform to the patient head and to measure the resulting alignment to the patient anatomy. The envisioned method is to acquire information on cap placement and MR and CT images of the specific patient in advance so that the therapeutic ultrasound can then be directed accurately to targets within the patient's brain. The proposed work includes a) developing beamforming algorithms applicable to a range of patient head sizes, with transducer elements arranged on the conforming cap; and (b) understanding and mitigating potential sources of errors limiting the performance. The project will conduct simulation and analysis using MR and CT images from real patients, obtained from the U.S. National Library of Medicine Visible Human Project, resulting in specifications suitable for construction of a laboratory device for verification and validation.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.

SBIR第一阶段项目旨在开发旨在为医生提供新能力的技术，以管理患有脑癌，阿尔茨海默氏症或帕金森氏症等脑部疾病的患者。脑部疾病难以治疗的一个原因是血脑屏障（BBB）的存在，它阻止了几乎所有治疗药物从血液到达患病组织。所提出的技术使得能够利用便携式系统以非侵入性方式打开BBB，并且可以部署在门诊或诊所环境中。该系统可能会影响管理脑部疾病患者的成本负担，并提供更好的生活质量。拟议的项目开发的方法，以准确地引导聚焦波束的超声波治疗目标在病人的大脑从一个阵列的超声波换能器嵌入在一个帽状设备符合舒适的病人的头部。在过去的几年中，具有微泡的聚焦超声（FDA批准的超声造影剂）已经用于瞬时打开BBB以施用药物或提供治疗。所提出的帽状装置包括既符合患者头部又测量与患者解剖结构的最终对准的机构。所设想的方法是预先获取关于帽放置的信息以及特定患者的MR和CT图像，使得治疗性超声波然后可以被准确地引导到患者大脑内的目标。所提出的工作包括：a）开发适用于一系列患者头部尺寸的波束成形算法，换能器元件布置在符合的帽上;以及（B）理解并减轻限制性能的潜在误差源。该项目将使用从美国国家医学图书馆可视人体项目获得的真实的患者的MR和CT图像进行模拟和分析，从而产生适合于验证和确认的实验室设备的规格。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估而被认为值得支持。