Kacie Kaile, a Ph.D. student from the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), and BME faculty Dr. Anuradha Godavarty received two US patents in October for their research regarding smartphone optical imaging technology. These patents will allow them to move forward with developing the technology to see beneath the surface of the skin and observe how oxygenation changes beneath the surface using smartphones as a low-cost device, onto which they developed and integrated the technology.
By using infrared light in optical imaging, they can see beneath the surface of tissues and notice changes in blood flow as a result of any disease or impact that may have affected them. Currently, the team is using this technology to image diabetic foot ulcers and assess their healing potential, as well as to determine if these ulcers are stable or of concern for infection and hospitalization.
The first of these two smartphone technology-based patents is part of Kacie Kaile’s doctoral dissertation research. She has done all designs, development, assembly and construction of the device, in addition to second patent is for extended research to see how they can add more features to the existing smartphone device. Dr. Godavarty explains, “This is the next generation smartphone-based imaging and therapeutics technology that is currently being developed in our Optical Imaging laboratory.”