Comprehensive imaging and quantification of blood flow for investigating ocular diseases without additional contrast agent

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Project Summary/Abstract Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) in collaboration with New York University (NYU) School of Medicine proposes to develop a novel ophthalmic imaging platform for characterizing retinal morphology and monitoring ocular blood flow abnormalities. This platform will combine non-invasive measurements of retina/choroid structure and ocular blood flow based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) and wide- field semi-quantitative global flow visualization using line-scanning Doppler flowmetry (LSDF). The combination of these two imaging modalities within the same imaging platform enables comprehensive assessment of blood flow in the retina and choroid. This novel imaging platform will enable imaging studies in animals and human subjects with normal vision or with various retinal diseases. Prior PSI experience in developing advanced ophthalmic imaging systems coupled with our collaborators' expertise in Ophthalmology will be leveraged to ensure the successful outcome of this important R&D program. A feasibility study will be performed during the Phase I program by imaging normal and diseased rodent models using a benchtop instrument. A clinical prototype instrument will be manufactured and tested clinically in Phase II in the NYU population of patients to highlight hemodynamic retinal biomarkers. We choose to focus on diseases that are the leading causes of blindness including, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), and glaucoma to demonstrate the clinical utility of our novel system. We will recruit healthy individuals to set a reference, and subjects with AMD, DR, and glaucoma at a wide range of disease severity. In all of these conditions, the ability to record in vivo blood flow will provide novel information that will open new diagnostic and treatment avenues.