Lighting the Way to a Healthy Nation - Optical 'X-rays' for Walk Through Diagnosis & Therapy

想象一下这样一个世界：通过旋转门或拱门，“不可见光”（超出我们正常视觉范围的光）可以为任何病人生成高分辨率的详细3D图像！这是《2050年倡议》的全球愿景和目标。这将使我们能够利用光（称为非电离辐射技术），结合快速计算方法和人工智能（AI）重建图像，进行非常早期的疾病检测。这将是变革性的，是一个实际的现实，此外还可能为2050年的医疗保健需求提供独特的治疗选择。这些目标将同时通过跨学科的进步来实现：利用世界领先的光学物理学——用肉眼看不见的波长工作的激光——类似于无线电波，但频率非常不同。-重新思考现有的探测器技术，开发新的化学物质层和传感器材料，使它们能够在这些“看不见的颜色”上发挥作用-开发新的图像恢复工具和新的计算光学和成像技术，使我们能够在没有任何染料注入或造成不便的情况下访问以前隐藏的深度信息。-验证对生活质量有巨大影响、国民保健服务费用巨大的疾病的技术，例如骨关节炎和癌症。为什么需要这样做？(我)。骨病：到2050年，60岁以上的人口将超过20亿。这对我们所有人来说都是好消息，但也会带来各种各样的医疗挑战。例如，据预测，全球髋部骨折的人数将从1990年的170万增加到2050年的630万。此外，日益严重的肥胖问题也加剧了肌肉骨骼疾病的恶化。肥胖问题对老年人和年轻人都有影响，预计到2050年，英国将有一半人口肥胖。我们的技术将对这些统计数据产生影响。早期、负担得起和非侵入性地发现疾病将使患者能够（在为时已晚之前）改变生活方式，从而对生活质量产生积极影响，并对国民保健制度产生广泛影响。癌症：在英国，1960年以后出生的人中有1 / 2会患癌症，5年内死于癌症的几率为20%。到2050年，随着人类寿命的延长，人们一生中患癌症的几率将是八分之一。能够影响这些统计数据将产生巨大的影响。我们的愿景是，非侵入性的外部照明光源——以微米级的精度——将能够在三维意义上照亮肿瘤并摧毁它。促进病人健康：现在想想这种穿透性强、聚焦性强的光还能带来什么影响？以三维方式选择性地与组织相互作用——我们能否在局部三维模式下激活药物？我们能驱动脂肪细胞代谢吗？可能性是巨大的，我们试图在我们的研究中解决这些问题。

Imagine a world where walking through a revolving door or archway allows "invisible light" (light outside our normal visual range) to generate detailed 3D images of any patient with high resolution! This is the global vision and targeted ambition of this 2050 proposal. This will allow us to target very early detection of disease using light (referred to as a non-ionising radiation technology) in association with fast computational methods and artificial intelligence (AI) to reconstruct images. This will be transformative, is a practical reality, and in addition potentially offers unique treatment options for the healthcare needs of 2050.These goals will be achieved by simultaneous interdisciplinary advances:- Harnessing of world-leading optical physics - with lasers that work at wavelengths of light that are invisible to the naked eye - akin to radio waves but with very different frequencies. - Rethinking of existing detector technology and development of layers of new chemistries and sensor materials to allow them to function at these "invisible colours" - Development of novel image restoration tools and new computational optics and imaging that will allow us to access information at depth that was previously hidden without any injection of dyes or causing inconvenience. - Validation of the technology on diseases that have huge impacts on quality of life and huge NHS costs, for example osteoarthritis and cancer.Why is this needed? (i). Bone disease: By 2050 there will be over 2 billion people aged over 60. This is wonderful news for us all, but will present a variety of healthcare challenges. For example it is predicted that the numbers of hip fractures worldwide will increase from 1.7 million in 1990 to 6.3 million in 2050. In addition, musculoskeletal conditions are worsened by the rising problem of obesity - that affects old and young alike with half the UK population predicted to be obese by 2050. Our technology will impact on these statistics. Detecting disease early and affordably and non-invasively will allow life-style changes to be made by patients (before it is too late) - leading to positive effects on quality of life and broad impact in relation to the NHS.(ii). Cancer: In the UK 1 in 2 of those born after 1960 will develop cancer with a 20% chance of dying from that cancer within 5 years. In 2050, as longevity has increased, the chances of someone getting cancer in their lifetime will be 8 in 10. Being able to influence these statistics will have dramatic impacts. Our vision is that non-invasive externally applied illumination sources - with micron precision - will be able to illuminate a tumour in a three-dimensional sense and destroy it.Driving patient health: Now think of the impact of what else the deeply penetrating and focused light might be able to do? Interacting with tissues selectively in a three-dimensional manner - could we hit activate drugs in a localised 3D pattern? Will we be able to drive fat cell metabolism? The possibilities are tremendous and we seek to address these in our research.