Next generation endoscopes

This fellowship will allow me to lead the exploitation of optical fibre technology in the healthcare industry. My work will use relatively cheap starting materials for optical fibres developed for the telecommunications industry and apply them to applications within healthcare. This will allow me to produce low-cost endoscopic devices capable of diagnosing and treating a number of conditions. I will work closely with clinical professionals and the healthcare industry throughout projects to define and tackle challenges with a genuine clinical pull. The project which will be undertaken is to produce an endoscopic device which will significantly change the care pathway for a patient which has a potentially cancerous lung nodule. Current care is to monitor the nodule with scans (perhaps over a number of years) and look for changes which indicate it is cancerous. This leads to continued radiation exposure from the scans and anxiety as the patient will be living their life knowing they possibly have lung cancer. My device will be able to go into the lungs and accurately diagnose the nodule and then ablate it destroying it instantly completely transforming the patient experience.

Patient impact: This work will change the care pathway for patients presenting with lung nodules which could be possible early stage cancers. Current practice is to adopt a watch and wait approach to observe a change in volume or other sinister characteristics of a lung nodule before treatment. This approach leaves patients potentially walking around for years with possible lung cancers causing a great deal of anxiety and exposure to radiation from further monitoring scans. This tool will allow the diagnosis and treatment of a suspected lung nodule at first presentation significantly improving patient experience.

Economic impact: An estimated 2.7 million lung nodules are discovered on CT annually in the US alone, and double that number are found on a global basis. "With somewhere between eight and 20 million patients fitting the most recent guidelines for lung cancer screening, the treatment/care pathway costs of lung nodules are huge and the associated interventional pulmonology market valued at $5BN . This project will produce a tool capable of diagnosing and treating nodules and bring it through the regulatory pathway providing direct access to this market. IP created throughout the project will be patented and exploited either through commercial licencing or spin out companies.

Academic impact: The creation and demonstration of diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic tools will generate a number of high quality journal publications and conference presentations.

Development of researchers: This project will train a new PDRA to work in a highly cross disciplinary environment. The PDRA will receive training and guidance in academic skills and the skills needed for maximising the industrial potential of interdisciplinary research.

Outreach: Over the course of this fellowship I will develop low-cost endoscopic demonstrator tools that can be used to at science fairs or teaching aids. These will demonstrae the principles of endoscopy show how interdisciplinary science can be used to solve challenges in healthcare educationg the general public and inspiring the next generation of interdisciplianry researchers.