Mikrovågor inom medicinteknik (engelska)

Current projects

B-Cratos

Starts: 2021, Ends:2025, Funding: FETOPEN-01-2018-2019-2020, Title: “Wireless Brain-Connect inteRfAce TO machineS”, Project ID: Horizon 2020 Grant agreement No 965044

Prof. Augustine is the scientific coordinator of this project and was assigned €4,475,059.25

The B-CRATOS project aims at creating the first battery-free high-speed wireless in-body communication platform for Brain-Machine-Body connectivity. Highly ambitious, this collaborative undertaking merges expertise and cutting-edge technologies from the fields of novel wireless communication, neuroscience, bionics, AI (artificial intelligence) and sensing.

Visit B-Cratos website to learn more

MAS

Starts: 2020, Ends:2023, Funding: Eureka Eurostars, Title: “E-MAS- Muscle Analyzer System”, Project ID: E! 114232 MAS

Prof. Augustine is the Swedish Co-ordinator of this project and was assigned 3,17 MSEK

The MAS is a new handheld device co-funded by the EU fund Eurostars and is being developed by an SME driven research consortium. The device utilizes non-ionizing radiation and is new to the medical field. It has promising benefits over existing standard diagnostic techniques such as CT, MRI or DXA in also finding and monitoring cancer patients that are prone to sarcopenia and malnutrition. Sarcopenia is a disease of low skeletal muscle mass, function and strength. It affects many, occurring in 19.7 million patients in Europe per year, increasing to over 32 million in 2045 and is on average responsible for 2% of the total European healthcare budget.

This new device will be easy to use and readily available for healthcare and will be suitable for screening, diagnosing and monitoring muscle health. It will enable repeated dynamic measurements of muscle properties in patients over time without the risk of negative effects. The device will enable healthcare early-on in developing an intervention strategy that can treat or prevent these conditions before it leads to decreased independence, early-onset disability, and decreased quality of life, among other adverse health outcomes.

SINTEC

Start: 2019, End: 2022, Funding: H2020 RIA, Title: SINTEC - Soft Intelligent Epidermal Communication, Project ID: 824984

Prof. Augustine is WP leader and the project has basis on intra-body FAT communication and receives 4MSEK.

SINTEC is a Horizon 2020 funded project running from 2019 to 2022 that will provide soft, sticky and stretchable sensor patches that can be used multiple times and at longer periods. With its dynamic compliance and water repellent permeable encapsulation it withstands vigorous action, sweating and water; making it ideal for an active life. A ground breaking intra body communication technique gives large bandwidth and secure consumption at low power, allowing for multiplex sensoric inputs from many nodes on the body.

To demonstrate the advantages of the novel technology, SINTEC will apply it in clinical environment and in athletics performance evaluation.

Visit SINTEC's website

SENSEBURN

Starts: 2018, Ends: 2021, Funding: Eureka Eurostars, Title: “SenseBurn”, Project ID: E!12052.

Prof. Augustine leads the Research and Development and receives 2.5 MSEK.

SenseBurn will be a safe, low cost, portable and non-invasive microwave sensor based diagnostic tool for burn analysis. It will facilitate an early diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of burn patients by providing accurate and reliable diagnosis data regarding burn depth and area.

The tool will effectively and accurately diagnose the actual burn depth and area and enable early medical intervention of the burn injuries. SenseBurn is supported by 3 innovations; a non-invasive microwave burn-depth sensor, 3D burn area image and intelligent software that estimate burn profile from clinical trials.

SenseBurn is a MedTech innovation project funded by European Union’s innovation program Eurostars to develop and commercialise an advanced burn diagnostic tool.

The Eurostars consortium consists of Uppsala Univeristy, Akademiska Sjukhuset , Uppsala and Hytton Technologies (Sweden) and RISC Software and Informatics Healthcare (Austria) and Datametrix (Switzerland).

Visit SenseBurn's website

OSTEODIAGNOSIS

Starts: 2018, Ends: 2021, Funding: Swedish Research Council – VR Project Grant, Title: "Osteodiagnosis - A new modality for monitoring osteogenesis in bone related defects”, Project ID: 2017-04644.

Prof. Augustine is PI and receives 3.2 MSEK.

Medical microwave imaging is a powerful innovative technology. This project aims to make an important step towards the practical implementation of:

1. In vivo, direct measurement of human body tissue. To characterize the dielectric properties of human bone (skeleton) or tissue tissue for frequency range between 1 - 10 GHz.
2. Design and manufacture sensors.
3. Perform measurements on various artificial models (phantom) whose electromagnetic properties shall be consistent with measurements from paragraph.
4. Perform clinical pilot studies to understand the interaction between microwaves and various human body tissues.

The possibility of distinguishing bone defects based on its different dielectric properties will be demonstrated in this project. Everything from genetic osteoporosis or osteoporosis due to weakened skeleton at older age, post-operative craniotomy and bone density in progressively restoring bone tissue. In the proposed project, we will use clinical data to study bone growth using microwave signals. Together with my co-worker Prof. Daniel Nowinski at the craniofacial center, Academic Hospital, Uppsala University, we have obtained ethical approval (Dnr 2016/06, County Council in Uppsala County) for clinical measurements and data collection for this project. Patients with craniosynostosis who have undergone craniotomy (surgery occurs between 0-3 months of age) will participate in the clinical pilot studies because they have larger post-surgical procedure defects (1-3 square centimeters), faster healing process and bone structure and well-defined area directly under the scalp. Craniosynostosis is a congenital condition whose sutures (sutures), one or more, are terminated at an early age. This causes an internal overpressure in the skull and inhibits the brain's natural development which in turn can lead to further complication. Visually, the child gets unnatural head shape and any developmental disabilities. The prevalence, for birth children, who develop craniosynostosis is approximately 4 in 10,000. Craniotomy is the surgical treatment and measure for craniosynostosis. Defects of various shapes and sizes, created by exposing the skull plates and using spacers for fixation, gradually grow back. Microwave sensors will be developed for analysis bone formation for these defects. These sensors will be optimized for very low power (<1mW) to ensure and secure patients' health.

Microwave technology (MW, Microwave) is a possible and attractive alternative compared to X-rays and computed tomography to examine the body's skeleton. MW is a unique and advantageous technology for the utilization of non-ionizing radiation which promotes health in in vivo imaging (measurements of living tissue in its natural environment). MW imaging is a type of identification based on the dielectric distributions and properties of body tissues - properties that cannot always be detected when using X-rays. Characterization of dielectric properties of bones, muscles and other body tissues are available from studies whose measurements have been made ex vivo (measurements of removed tissue in a laboratory environment). In this project, characterization and focusing will be done in-vivo to determine more useful and accurate data. Bone tissue tends to decrease mineral density in case of prolonged inactivity, in aging and even in more extreme conditions such as osteoporosis. There is a strong correlation between the mineral density of the skeleton and its dielectric properties.

LIFESEC

Starts: 2018, Ends: 2022, Funding: Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), Title: “LifeSec : Don’t Hack My Body”, Project ID: RIT-17-0020.

Prof. Augustine is co-PI and the project is based on his work on Fat-IBC and receives 8.5MSEK.

Visit LifeSec's official webpage.

CONNECT

Starts: 2018. Ends: 2020. Funding: Vinnova - Smart electronics 2018, Title: “Anslut min kropp: från in-body kommunikation till hälsovårdssystemet”, Project ID: 2018-01532

Prof. Augustine is Co-PI and the project is based on his work on intra-body FAT communication and receives 2 MSEK

Concluded projects

BDAS

Starts: 2015, Ends: 2019, Funding: Vinnova, Title: “Bone Mineral Density Analysis”, Project ID: 2015-04159.

Prof. Augustine is the PI and received 2.5 MSEK.

The Bone Mineral Density Analysis System BDAS, research project is centered on the clinical activity of craniofacial surgery related to Craniosynostosis. Craniosynostosis is a medical condition where skull plates of new born fuses prematurely leaving limited volume for brain growth. This creates building up of intracranial pressure resulting in complications such as abnormal head shape, visual impairment, and development disability. Craniotomy is a surgical intervention adopted as part of craniosynostosis treatment. Defects of various size and shapes are made in the skull and these defects are healed gradually. The project includes the development and application of a new technology to monitor bone formation that will be directly applicable by providing facile readouts without sacrificing animals. The project is funded by Swedish research funding fron Vinnova.

COMFORT

Starts: 2015, Ends:2018, Funding: Eureka Eurostars, Title: “COMFORT - Complex Fracture Orthopedic Rehabilitation of Lower Extremity Trauma”, Project ID: 2015-04163.

Prof. Augustine is Swedish Co-ordinator of the project and was assigned 2 MSEK.

Complex Fracture Orthopaedic Rehabilitation COMFORT: Specific indications and techniques for fracture treatment have been developed over the past decades, resulting in improved healing rates. However, healing rates are largely based upon radiographic healing and clinical healing, where clinical healing is defined as pain free weight bearing. Surprisingly little information beyond this definition is available. The project aims to develop and implement a ground-breaking new fully integrated biofeedback technique for measurement of muscle mass, bone quality and loading patterns of the injured limb. The project is funded by Horizon 2020, Eurostars.