I-Corps: Video-rate structured illumination microscopy for point-of-care prostate biopsy diagnosis

Tulane University, New Orleans LA

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project revolves around the need to reduce societal healthcare costs and to improve the quality of disease diagnostics. Unfortunately for many patients needing diagnostic procedures for cancer and other disease evaluation, preliminary testing does not reveal accurate results in a timely manner. This is a particular problem for cancers such as prostate and breast and non-oncologic diseases of the kidney and liver where imaging fresh tissue is an important component of the evaluation process. Limitations of fresh tissue evaluation ultimately result in unnecessary repeat procedures for patients because current protocols involve tissue destruction and long processing times to reveal a diagnosis. Faster, more accurate clinical imaging techniques can potentially decrease overall healthcare costs and the burden of many invasive procedures by reducing unnecessary repeat diagnostic procedures. Furthermore, rapid clinical imaging techniques can lessen the cost of personalized medicine by offering a more simplistic approach from a data collection and storage standpoint. Considering expanded applications of rapid imaging technology outside of healthcare, novel techniques can improve industrial screening of materials and offer efficient solutions for precision measurement of products. This I-Corps project aims to further develop a rapid imaging technique for commercialization in healthcare or other industry. The technology represents a novel application of structured illumination microscopy (SIM), which utilizes patterned light and a mathematical algorithm to eliminate out of focus areas in the resulting images. Imaging with SIM produces high-resolution images of fluorescent objects such as cells in biological tissue, inorganic chemicals, or fibers in forensics. The SIM system is able to image a relatively large area with a variety of fast-acting stains, representing a speed breakthrough in the field of fluorescence microscopy. The speed advantage of SIM inspired preliminary research focused on point-of-procedure fresh tissue imaging for cancer evaluation. Pilot clinical studies evaluating prostate and kidney biopsy tissue have demonstrated that SIM is an accurate tool for identifying cancer. Importantly, fresh tissue with minimal processing can be captured with SIM to produce pathology-relevant digital images within minutes of tissue removal. Further validation of SIM for cancer diagnostics has been conducted on larger specimens including surgically removed prostates and partial kidneys. While preliminary data has shown the potential for point-of-procedure cancer evaluation, this I-Corps project will also explore applications in other industries such as chemistry and forensics.