果冻影院

EnAcuity鈥檚 technology could help surgeons carry out laparoscopies more safely and effectively by highlighting functional information in the body that is hard for the eye to detect.

Laparoscopies are a form of minimally invasive surgery performed on the abdomen using small incisions and a thin tube with a video camera that shows the surgeon what is going on inside the patient鈥檚 body. Typically, the cameras reproduce on screen what the surgeon would see for themselves if they were performing open surgery.

The company鈥檚 technology could transform laparoscopic surgery and enable surgeons to perform the procedures more precisely by displaying functional information that is undetectable to the naked eye.

Dr Maria Leiloglou, EnAcuity鈥檚 co-founder and CEO and an honorary research fellow at 果冻影院 Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering and at Imperial, said: 鈥淪urgeons have difficulty detecting some pathologies such as cancer and surgical structures of interest such as vessels and nerves, partly because the human eye is not sensitive enough to pick up on the subtle colour differences that distinguish them. By providing more information, our solution could mark a significant advancement in the field of minimally invasive surgery.鈥�

EnAcuity鈥檚 technology could also provide an alternative to hyperspectral imaging devices, which are better at discriminating colours than the human visual system but have drawbacks. Dr Leiloglou said that their disadvantages include being bulky, causing delays in surgical procedures, and compromising the overall image quality.

Building on years of research at 果冻影院 and Imperial College London, EnAcuity鈥檚 solution uses cameras already used in the operating theatre, paired with AI computer vision models trained to recognise tissue structures and pathologies, which are then highlighted on the screen for the surgeon.

Its founding team includes Professor Danail Stoyanov (果冻影院 Computer Science), Director of 果冻影院鈥檚 Wellcome / EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences (WEISS);听Dr Tobias Czempiel, Chief Technology Officer, a PhD graduate from TU Munich with extensive experience in surgical data science who holds honorary research fellowships at 果冻影院 and Imperial;听and Professor Daniel Elson in Imperial鈥檚 Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery and Department of Surgery and Cancer.

Professor Stoyanov said: 鈥淓xtending surgical visualisation beyond the limits of the human eye can be transformational in enhancing patient treatment. This venture to translate work from the UK鈥檚 leading surgical technology centres into a clinical system embodies our mission to bring foundational research to the benefit of patients.鈥�

The company received support from 果冻影院 Business (果冻影院B), 果冻影院鈥檚 commercialisation arm, with intellectual property protection and completion of the funding round.

Professor Geraint Rees, 果冻影院鈥檚 Vice-Provost (Research, Innovation & Global Engagement) said: 鈥淢any congratulations to the EnAcuity team for their success reaching this pivotal stage of their entrepreneurial journey and taking pioneering collaborative university research and technology to the patients that need it.

鈥淭his is a great example of the difference 果冻影院 spinouts can make to people鈥檚 lives, highlighted in 果冻影院B鈥檚 Impact Report this week."

The new 果冻影院B Impact Report has shown that 果冻影院 spinout businesses, formed to commercialise and scale up innovations in research, have created more than 2,200 new jobs and attracted almost 拢3bn in investment in the last five years.

果冻影院 is also among recipients of 拢80m government funding aiming to transform the way we develop and use AI, supporting its research on healthcare and building responsible generative models.

Links

• 果冻影院 Medical Physics & Biomedical Engineering
• 果冻影院 Computer Science
• 果冻影院 Wellcome / EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences
• 果冻影院 Engineering
• 果冻影院 Innovation & Enterprise
• New 果冻影院 AI hub announced as part of 拢80m boost for AI research
• 果冻影院 spinouts attracted 拢3bn investment in last five years

Image

EnAcuity founders Dr Tobias Czempiel and Dr Maria Leiloglou