An Indian Scientist Leads UK Team To Create A Camera That Can See Through Human Body

A scientist of India leads a team at UK University to create medical camera that can see through your body. This is believed to be a remarkable achievement as such a camera possesses the capability to help doctors in improving internal medical examinations. Kev Dhaliwal, the Professor of Molecular Imaging and Healthcare Technology at the University of Edinburgh, believes that this device will end the need for doctors to rely on expensive scans and X-rays. This device is being seen as a development in the field of medicine. 

“It has immense potential for diverse applications, such as the one described in this work. The ability to see a device’s location is crucial for many applications in healthcare, as we move forwards with minimally invasive approaches to treating disease,” says Dhaliwal who is the Project Lead of Proteus, which is a part of a bigger research collaboration that works on developing a new sect of technologies. 

This camera has been designed to help doctors in tracking the medical tool endoscopes. These tools are used to investigate a number of internal conditions. This device is capable of detecting the sources of light inside the body, for example the illuminated tip of the long flexible tube of the endoscope. 

Till now, it was not possible to track where exactly the endoscope is located inside the body to guide it to the right place without the help of X-rays or any other expensive technique. Initially, the light from the endoscope used to scatter or bounce off the tissues and organs. It could pass through the body but couldn’t travel straight through. Hence, getting a clear picture of where the endoscope is was nearly impossible. This new camera takes advantage of the technology which is capable of detecting individual particles called photons through the light. 

Together, the experts have integrated thousands of single photon detectors, on a silicon chip. This construct is similar to what is found in a digital camera. 

The camera uses a technology sensitive enough to detect the tiny traces of light of the endoscope that can pass through the tissues of the human body. It also records the time taken for light to pass through the body, which allows the device to detect scattered light. 

The project Proteus has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and this latest research has been published in ‘Biomedical Optics Express'. 

With inputs from PTI.

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