EPSRC IRC Proteus - Multiplexed 'Touch and Tell' Optical Molecular Sensing and Imaging - Lifetime and Beyond

EPSRC IRC Proteus由一群世界领先的科学家、工程师和临床医生组成。跨学科是我们的核心--我们跨越传统的界限，将光学物理、化学生物学、生物学和工程学等学科联系在一起，仅举几例。我们的雄心和愿望是将技术转化为帮助患者-使临床医生能够在床边看到他们眼前的疾病，并帮助他们在正确的时间做出正确的决定和提供正确的治疗。在临床需求和拉动的推动下，这种高度跨学科的合作导致了许多世界领先的基于床边的技术平台的设计、制造和患者测试。我们的技术平台结合了先进的光纤技术(可以很容易地进入患者的肺部)和高灵敏度的探测器，以及高灵敏度的荧光化学试剂来诊断疾病。这使得临床医生能够“观察”肺部内部，以检测细菌或疾病的异常症状。临床拉动：重症监护病房(ICU)患者的死亡率和致残率很高，对医疗服务造成了不成比例的经济负担(相当于美国GDP的1%花在重症监护患者身上)。潜在的致命肺部并发症是呼吸机ICU患者的常见问题，在ICU护理这些患者的医生面临许多挑战，通常需要在没有适当告知这些决定所需的信息的情况下做出仓促决定。Proteus正在开发的新技术平台正在帮助重症监护病房的医生对患者进行快速准确的诊断，使他们能够指导和告知治疗，并确保患者在正确的时间和快速获得正确的治疗。尽管我们的技术平台目前专注于用于重症监护病房，但它广泛适用于各种肺部疾病和其他医疗保健情况，如肠癌或胰腺癌。IRC的下一步是将我们的技术引入一个新领域，在这个领域可以使用不同味道的光来诊断疾病-使用团队的高度先进的光传感器(能够计算单个光子)。此外，该提案将IRC推向可持续发展，从EPSRC的投资中创造了一项遗产--加快将新技术应用于患者的途径，同时开发商业机会。总之，EPSRC IRC Proteus产生了一批受过物理、生物科学和工程培训的年轻跨学科科学家，他们对临床翻译和商业化途径有充分的欣赏和实践经验。他们将能够通过开发一些尖端的床边技术平台来应对将科学和工程的进步转化为医疗福利的挑战，这些平台将帮助医生做出快速而准确的诊断。该小组与伙伴大学合作，也开始在IRC的完全可持续性方面取得重大进展--在临床和商业翻译领域产生了重大影响，取得了重大的学术成果和公众参与活动。

The EPSRC IRC Proteus is made up of a group of world-leading scientists, engineers and clinicians. Interdisciplinarity is at our heart - we work across traditional boundaries linking together disciplines such as optical physics, chemical biology, biology and engineering to name but a few. The ambition and desire is to translate technologies to help patients - empowering clinicians to "see disease" in front of their eyes at the bedside and help them to make the right decisions and give the right treatments at the right time. This highly interdisciplinary collaboration driven by clinical need and pull, has led to the design, fabrication and testing in patients of a number of world-leading bedside-based technology platforms. Our technology platform combines advanced fibre optic technology (that can be readily be passed into the lung of patients) and highly sensitive detectors in association with highly sensitive fluorescent chemical reagents to diagnose disease. This allows clinicians to "view" inside the lung to detect bacteria or aberrant disease signatures of disease. Clinical pull: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients suffer high death and disability rates and are responsible for a disproportionate financial burden on the health service (the equivalent of 1% of USA GDP is spent on patients in intensive care). Potentially fatal lung complications are a common problem in ventilated ICU patients and doctors caring for these patients in the ICU face many challenges, often needing to make snap decisions without the information necessary to properly inform those decisions. The new technology platforms being developed by Proteus are helping doctors in the intensive care unit to make rapid and accurate diagnoses of patients, allowing them to direct and inform therapy and ensure patients get the right treatment, at the right time and quickly. Although our technology platforms have a focus at this time on being used in the intensive care unit, it is widely applicable to a wide range of lung conditions and other healthcare situations, such as bowel or pancreatic cancer.The next steps for the IRC are to take our technology into a new area in which different flavours of light can be used to diagnose disease - using the teams' highly advanced light sensors (that are able to count a single photon). In addition the proposal moves the IRC towards sustainability, creating a legacy from the EPSRC investment - accelerating the pathways to take new technology into patients, while developing commercial opportunities.In summary the EPSRC IRC Proteus has generated a new cohort of young interdisciplinary scientists trained in physical and biological sciences and engineering that have a full appreciation and practical experience of clinical translational and commercialisation pathways. They will be able to meet the challenges of converting advances in science and engineering into healthcare benefits with the development of a number of cutting-edge bedside technology platforms which will help doctors make rapid and accurate diagnoses. The team, in association with the partner Universities, have also begun to make major strides towards full sustainability of the IRC - making major impacts in the areas of clinical and commercial translation, with significant academic outputs and public engagement activities.