The strategic goal of Medical Optical Imaging, Inc. is to build and market an Optical Mammography device. The device will serve both screening and diagnostic purposes. The device incorporates two key components as integral parts: hardware and software. These components will work in conjunction with each other. The state-of-the-art hardware unit measures output diffuse light in the frequency domain for many modulated frequencies in the range from 300kHz to 1 GHz for 3 or more wavelengths using near infrared light. The software will use this data as input to reconstruct images of abnormalities in the breast tissues and to provide diagnosis. The software will be based on a fundamentally new mathematical algorithm for image reconstruction, the so called Elliptic System Method (ESM). Through this application the company requests partial support for the test and calibration of these two components on phantom media and, most important pre-clinical trials on several tens of breast volunteers. The remainder of the support will come from private capital raised by the company.The University of North Carolina at Charlotte will be a sub- contractor for this STTR grant to partially support the efforts of professors Michael V. Klibanov and Thomas R. Lucas, who are co-inventors of the Elliptic Systems Method and major stockholders of the company.
The ultimate aim of this project is to build and market an optical mammography device that could be used as a screening or diagnostic tool for cancer.
