Dr. Dirk Meier, Senior Scientist from Gamma Medica-Ideas accepted the Innovation Award on behalf of GMI. According to Dr. Meier, “The new dual modality SPECT/MRI system which GMI has pioneered creates an entirely new enabling imaging modality that fuses the high resolution anatomical abilities of MRI imaging with the physiological imaging capability of SPECT in one instrument. This was not possible previously because the glass-encased vacuum tubes used in conventional SPECT detectors are not capable of operating in magnetic fields.” Dr. Douglas Wagenaar, Gamma Medica-Ideas Director of Research added, “This breakthrough could significantly impact the future of medical imaging across many fields. An example where it could make an impact is in the diagnosis of vulnerable plaque. Vulnerable plaque is a thrombogenic plaque that is distinct from the arterial wall calcification that most people associate with heart attacks, and is in fact implicated now in 70% of cardiovascular events. Vulnerable plaque spontaneously ruptures leading to acute and often fatal results. With a dual SPECT-MRI system one could simultaneously use the MRI to visualize the swelling and inflammation associated with the build up of the plaque and the SPECT to identify and localize specific molecular processes underlying the disease such as metabolism, endothelial cell activation, and apoptosis where the cells are ‘behaving’ differently than normal.”
Parts of GMI’s development were funded by the NIH’s Biomedical Imaging Institute (NIBIB) in the USA, and others by the Research Council of Norway. The research team includes experts from several key institutions in the United States, notably: Dr. Orhan Nalcioglu (University of California, Irvine), who specializes in the physics of MRI systems, and Dr. Benjamin M.W. Tsui (Johns Hopkins University Medical Center), who specializes in the development of novel image reconstruction techniques.
Gamma Medica-Ideas is currently targeting the pre-clinical market for introduction of its first product employing the new technology. The company believes that the pre-clinical setting is a perfect environment to challenge new imaging systems to develop optimized performance and to prove out new technologies before launching large-scale clinical applications. As such it aims to expand its market-leading range of products for pre-clinical imaging with the addition of the MRI-SPECT product in 2010. In the future, GM-I plans to target specific clinical applications of the technology such as breast cancer imaging; neuro-degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s; and atherosclerotic plaque in cardiovascular disease, areas where it believes the technology will make a large impact.
About Gamma Medica-Ideas, Inc.
Gamma Medica-Ideas (GMI) designs, builds and services imaging systems based on novel technologies to improve patient health through early diagnosis of disease, improved patient treatment and by enabling new drug discovery. GMI is dedicated to leading medical imaging into a new digital era with its unique sensor readout systems. The company’s core digital imaging technologies also hold great promise for a new class of solutions for the safety and security markets. In the pre-clinical space, GMI’s FLEX Triumph(TM) imaging platform is marketed for medical research and drug development. The FLEX Triumph system combines PET (LabPET(TM)), SPECT (X-SPECT(R)) and CT (X-O(TM)) modalities in the world’s first tri-modality system. GMI’s pre-clinical imaging products are distributed exclusively by GE Healthcare globally and in Japan by SII NanoTechnology, a Seiko company. In the clinical space, GMI offers LumaGEM(R), its dual-headed Molecular Breast Imaging (MBI) based system for early diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. The digital gamma ray imaging technology in LumaGEM offers significant advances in resolution and contrast, which has allowed for identification of millimeter sized breast cancers missed by mammography, especially in women with dense breast tissue. Visit www.gm-ideas.com.