Biomedical imaging and signal processing for the intra-operative detection of cancerous tissue

This industry led project involves the application of signal processing and optical engineering to advance the state of the art in medical imaging for cancer surgery. Cancer surgery is often unsuccessful, resulting in the need for multiple operations or increasing the need for additional drug treatment or radiotherapy. For example, approximately 25% of patients undergoing surgery for prostate cancer will have a positive surgical margin which is an indicator of incomplete cancer removal. Surgery is unsuccessful so often because surgeons lack a tool to detect cancerous tissue in real time during surgery. This pressing need can be met through the development of intra-operative technology for detecting radiopharmaceutical tracers which are currently used for pre-operative PET and SPECT scans. These novel techniques face engineering challenges due to the time, space and activity concentration constraints of the application as well as physics challenges due to the need to collect and interpret complex signals due to radiation absorption, scattering effects and the presence of interferences. This Eng-D project will build both a theoretical and practical understanding of two contrasting approaches; in-vivo detection of cancer during laparoscopic surgery and detection of cancerous margins on ex-vivo samples. This will involve Monte Carlo simulations of the radiation physics (e.g. GEANT4), investigating sources of interference in practice and developing signal processing and visualisation techniques (e.g. MATLAB/Python). Promising advances will be further investigated through experiment, prototyping and using real data and images from medical instruments. This work will be done in close collaboration with industry, with the student being placed at Lightpoint Medical.

Complementing our Pathways to Impact document, here we state the expected real-world impact, which is of course the leading priority for our industrial partners. Their confidence that the proposed CDT will deliver valuable scientific, engineering and commercial impact is emphasized by their overwhelming financial support (£4.38M from industry in the form of cash contributions, and further in-kind support of £5.56M).

Here we summarize what will be the impacts expected from the proposed CDT.

(1) Impact on People
(a) Students
The CDT will have its major impact on the students themselves, by providing them with new understanding, skills and abilities (technical, business, professional), and by enhancing their employability.
(b) The UK public
The engagement planned in the CDT will educate and inform the general public about the high quality science and engineering being pursued by researchers in the CDT, and will also contribute to raising the profile of this mode of doctoral training -- particularly important since the public have limited awareness of the mechanisms through which research scientists are trained.

(2) Impact on Knowledge
New scientific knowledge and engineering know-how will be generated by the CDT. Theses, conference / journal papers and patents will be published to disseminate this knowledge.

(3) Impact on UK industry and economy
UK companies will gain a competitive advantage by using know-how and new techniques generated by CDT researchers.
Companies will also gain from improved recruitment and retention of high quality staff.
Longer term economic impacts will be felt as increased turnover and profitability for companies, and perhaps other impacts such as the generation / segmentation of new markets, and companies receiving inward investment for new products.

(4) Impact on Society
Photonic imaging, sensing and related devices and analytical techniques underpin many of products and services that UK industry markets either to consumers or to other businesses. Reskilling of the workforce with an emphasis on promoting technical leadership is central to EPSRC's Productive Nation prosperity outcome, and our CDT will achieve exactly this through its development of future industrially engaged scientists, engineers and innovators. The impact that these individuals will have on society will be manifested through their contribution to the creation of new products and services that improve the quality of life in sectors like transport, dependable energy networks, security and communications.

Greater internationalisation of the cohort of CDT researchers is expected from some of the CDT activities (e.g. international summer schools), with the potential impact of greater collaboration in the future between the next generations of UK and international researchers.