Dates:
01/10/2014 to 31/03/2015
Overview:
Phase 1 of SURS has been highly successful, meeting its milestones on time and within budget. We have also worked very successfully with Morton Manufacturing, and local SME Health Science Solutions, whilst also making contacts with international players in the ultrasound industry. We have also recently completed data capture in the field with healthy volunteers.
Phase 2 of SURS will focus on the clinical component, using ultrasound to scan stroke patients’ brains. This would use all of the relevant scanning information that we have gained through our work with healthy volunteers, progressing closer towards employing ultrasound on the intended patient population. So far we have focused on nominally ‘normal’ (i.e., non-stroke) volunteers, which is appropriate given that the technique of brain scanning required to be understood and refined.
We now need to see how ‘abnormal’ brains compare to our ‘normal’ dataset. An appropriate sub-set of stroke patients would be identified in conjunction with stroke specialists in NHS Highland; we would apply for NHS Research Ethics Committee approval for the research, and for NHS Highland R&D management approval.
The images would be analysed by stroke specialists, and generate a library of data for computer-aided diagnosis pilot work; we consider that computing power may be crucial to establishing definitively that all of each patient’s brain has been scanned, and in ruling out intracranial haemorrhage.
We would use some of the funds to purchase/lease an ultrasound machine, which is essential so that we can conduct the proposed research.
We would also use the project to help cement collaboration with an ultrasound manufacturer, which may involve relevant staff relocating to the area to support our development work.
Impact:
The first Highland Ultrasound Research Symposium was held on 10th February 2015 in the Centre for Health Sciences, Inverness. Click here to find out more about the symposium and watch videos from the event.
CRH Speaker at National Space Conference
Dr Eadie was one of 167 expert speakers presenting to over 1,000 delegates including UK space representatives, users of space-based services, entrepreneurs, academia, policy-makers, funders and students.
She discussed her research in a session launching the UK Space Environments Association to provide communication, collaboration and cooperation platforms for the UK space sector and the UK Space Life and Biomedical Sciences Association to bring together academia, industry and science enable a coordinated output.
Scotland had a strong presence at the conference, which covered topics concerned with research in space, for example experiments performed by astronauts at the International Space Station, as well as ground-based research and projects benefitting from space technology, like SURS.
Funder:
Highland and Islands Enterprise
Involved Partners:
- SAS
- Health Science Solutions
- Tactical Wireless