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Nagpur: How many times do we wonder what goes inside our complex human body? To answer the queries, an Indian-origin scientist, Kev Dhaliwal, led a team at a UK university to build a medical camera that can see through the human body. He believes it has enormous potential for doctors in tracking internal examinations, a difficult practice as of now.
Dhaliwal, Professor of Molecular Imaging and Healthcare Technology at the University of Edinburgh, believes that the camera will help the doctors not rely merely on expensive scans and X-rays for internal examinations.
The camera is designed to help doctors track medical tools, known as endoscopes, that are used to investigate a range of internal conditions. The new device is able to detect sources of light inside the body, such as the illuminated tip of the endoscope’s long flexible tube.
The new camera takes advantage of advanced technology that can detect individual particles of light, called photons, the team explains. Experts have integrated thousands of single photon detectors onto a silicon chip, similar to that found in a digital camera.
The technology is so sensitive that it can detect the tiny traces of light that pass through the body’s tissue from the light of the endoscope. It can also record the time taken for light to pass through the body, allowing the device to also detect the scattered light.
Proteus is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the latest research has been published in the journal ‘Biomedical Optics Express’.
