Dexela Limited Awarded Technology Strategy Board Grant For Work On Digital Breast Tomosynthesis

Main Category: Breast Cancer
Also Included In: Radiology / Nuclear Medicine
Article Date: 03 Dec 2007 - 3:00 PDT

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Dexela, a leading company in Digital Breast Tomosynthesis, announced that it has been awarded a £360,000 grant by the Technology Strategy Board as part of a £1,600,000 collaborative research and development programme with two leading research universities. Support for the Project of £400,000 is also to be provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The primary aim of the project, Digital Breast Tomosynthesis (DBT), is to improve image quality in DBT and realise its potential for the early detection of breast cancer with improved sensitivity and specificity.

The grant will be used primarily to develop a world-leading, second-generation DBT device which will incorporate several technical innovations, as well as assimilating into the Dexela software a number of the most recent research developments from medical image researchers at UCL and Oxford University. The project will be led by Dexela within its specially designed, web-based medical software and device quality management system.

Dexela's partners in the three-year program are Professor Sir Michael Brady of the Wolfson Medical Vision Laboratory (MVL), the University of Oxford, Professor David Hawkes and Professor Simon Arridge of the Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London. These collaborators are world leaders and have worked for many years on breast image analysis with a proven track record of successful collaboration and innovation in particular on the EPSRC/MRC Interdisciplinary Research Consortium (IRC) project MIAS1.

Dr Edward Bullard, CEO of Dexela commented: "This award is an endorsement of Dexela's leadership in DBT. The grant, together with the support of our investors provides a platform to take the technology forward and accelerate our product development for acquisition, processing and visualisation of high resolution 3D images of the breast for a range of commercial opportunities."

"The support of the Technology Strategy Board on this project is greatly appreciated", said Dr Jamshid Dehmeshki, Dexela's Chief Scientist and leader of the project: "This research and development program is a unique opportunity to combine our expertise with our partners, two of the UK's leading research Universities (Oxford and UCL), to develop state of the art technology to revolutionise the future of DBT with substantial market potential".

About Dexela

Formed in 2005 to address significant unmet medical need in the early detection of breast cancer, Dexela is developing innovative, low-radiation breast screening techniques that not only may extend the benefits of breast cancer screening to women under fifty, but may also reduce call backs due to false positive results and increase the sensitivity of breast cancer detection, leading to fewer cancers being missed by doctors.

Dexela has a talented and experienced team of award-winning scientists, as well as a strong portfolio of intellectual property and it is this team which has developed world-leading technology for the acquisition, processing and visualisation of high resolution 3-D images of the breast, a type of imaging known as Tomosynthesis. Dexela's novel approach to Tomosynthesis has significant clinical advantages over competing approaches. They now intend to use this position to secure the leading role in the field and establish collaborative agreements with medical device manufacturers. For more information about Dexela Ltd please visit http://www.dexelaimaging.com.

About The Centre for Medical Image Computing at UCL

The Centre for Medical Image Computing is a world class grouping combining excellence in medical imaging sciences with innovative computational methodology. Their research finds application in biomedical research and in healthcare. The research of the group focuses on detailed structural and functional analysis in neurosciences, imaging to guide interventions, image analysis in drug discovery, imaging in cardiology and imaging in oncology with a strong emphasis on e-science technologies. The Centre, which is a joint initiative between the Departments of Medical Physics and Computer Science, has very close links with the Faculty of Clinical Sciences, the Faculty of Life Sciences and associated Clinical Institutes, in particular the Institute of Neurology and the Institute of Child Health. They have links with the Centre for Neuroimaging Techniques (CNT), London Centre for Nanotechnology and the Centre for Healthcare Informatics and Medical Education (CHIME).

About Oxford University Wolfson Medical Vision Laboratory (MVL)

The Wolfson Medical Vision Laboratory (MVL) is part of the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford and is based in the new Information Engineering Building. They conduct inter-disciplinary basic and applied research in medical imaging and image analysis.

About Technology Strategy Board

The Technology Strategy Board is a business-led executive non-departmental public body, established by the government. Its mission is to promote and support research into, and development and exploitation of, technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business, in order to increase economic growth and improve the quality of life. It is sponsored by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS).

http://www.dexelaimaging.com