It looks like a key, the sort you鈥檇 find in some high-tech fancy new car. Its casing is round and plastic, its blade long, thin and metallic.
At the tip, inside of a square that鈥檚 only a few millimetres across, are somewhere between 64 and 128 miniature ultrasound receivers. And it鈥檚 these tiny receivers that will allow doctors to explore the inside of the human ear with greater precision than ever before.
The technology, developed by the team of researchers at AV俱乐部 and Capital Health, is the world鈥檚 first high-resolution, endoscopic ultrasound-imaging probe. It鈥檚 poised to offer ear clinicians a tool they鈥檝e never had before: a way to diagnose issues of the inner and middle ear without surgery.
On Tuesday, Colibri Technologies, an Ontario-based health-care technology company, together with AV俱乐部 and Capital Health, announced it is licensing the technology and plans to begin manufacturing the new probe in its Toronto facilities.
Small device, big opportunity
The probe represents another exciting invention from an incredibly successful partnership of three researchers: Jeremy Brown, Rob Adamson and Manohar Bance. Though there are a number of cross-appointments between them, Drs. Brown and Adamson are largely based in Biomedical Engineering, whereas Dr. Bance is a clinician/researcher in the Faculty of Medicine鈥檚 Division of Otolaryngology.
鈥淎ll our technologies are centred around the auditory system, and that鈥檚 because of our close collaboration with Dr. Bance,鈥� explains Dr. Brown, lead developer for the ultrasound-imaging probe.
鈥淛ust having access to a clinician like that, so we can learn about prospective pathologies we can diagnose, or where to implant hearing aids 鈥� as scientists and engineers, we鈥檇 have no clue. So having a clinician, you get that perspective.鈥�
Their team, part of the S.E.N.S.E. Lab (Sensory Encoding and Neuro-Sensory Engineering), holds more than a dozen patents and co-owns several companies. Its latest creation, the ear probe, is an extension of Dr. Brown鈥檚 research into high-resolution ultrasound imaging, an expertise he鈥檚 been developing dating back to his own PhD studies.
鈥淭he first thing I said when I started collaborating with Dr. Bance on some of the hearing aid technologies was, 鈥楬ow do you image the ear?鈥� And he responded simply: 鈥榃e don鈥檛.鈥� CT scans and MRIs are too low a resolution, and nothing else can gain access to the ear because it鈥檚 not optically transparent.鈥�
The new device allows clinicians to explore the inner ear without surgery, and to peer inside the middle ear at resolutions 10 times clearer than the status quo. This can help diagnose a number of concerns inside the ear, with examples ranging from a malfunctioning implant device through to M茅ni猫re's disease.
The challenge in developing a probe like this? Size: traditionally, an ultrasound probe is often several centimetres across, way too large to work inside the ear.
鈥淭o miniaturize it into something small enough, you really have to cheat a lot, basically,鈥� explains Dr. Brown. 鈥淵ou can do that through microfabrication technologies and also signal processing technologies 鈥� and here, we鈥檝e done both.鈥�
Hands-on opportunities for students
Helping take the probe from concept to reality is the lab鈥檚 team of 12 researchers and engineers, several of whom are graduate students or postdocs at Dal.
Biomedical Engineering PhD student Andre Bezanson has been helping to build the device. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been using these techniques that are the same for shrinking down the microchips in cell phones to get similar cell reductions,鈥� he explains. 鈥淪o I鈥檝e been doing a lot of that hands-on work.鈥�
Bezanson says the opportunity to work on a project such as this has been invaluable for his career.
鈥淚t鈥檚 one of those applications where there鈥檚 not a lot of people trained in it, but there鈥檚 such a high demand for the skill set. We鈥檙e at the leading edge of being able to make things smaller.鈥�
鈥淚f you were to ask me what my primary objective is, it鈥檚 training students and postdocs and research engineers,鈥� says Dr. Brown. 鈥淭he experience they鈥檙e getting here is training in a lab that is among the top in the world at developing this technology, and they also get hands-on experience for all of the same processes used in the semiconductor industry. They graduate with a really valuable training in next-generation technologies.鈥�
Kate Latham is a master鈥檚 student in the lab, currently working on translating elements of the imaging system from digital to analog.
鈥淭he lab is great,鈥� she says. 鈥淛ust look around: there鈥檚 so many exciting things we get to work on. Since working in the lab, I鈥檝e decided to switch to a PhD program, and that was never in the plan originally.鈥�
As for the ear probe, the team plans to continue to refine the technology, improving the image quality, while Colibri begins working to bring the product to market. The team also expects to begin pre-market clinical studies within the next six months.
The probe has been developed through a $3.8 million Capital Health-led research and development project, with an investment of $2.6 million from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency鈥檚 Atlantic Innovation Fund. Other funders include NSERC, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Innovacorp, Capital Health and AV俱乐部.
