In 2009, the National Instruments Medical Device Grant Committee awarded 34 companies more than $600,000 USD in software, training, and services. A few of the companies and their innovative applications are listed below.
Akonni Biosystems is a point-of-care clinical diagnostic company that specializes in the rapid, accurate, and affordable detection of human diseases and infectious agents. The objective of this development effort is the combination of key Akonni technologies into a single automated device. At the center of the instrument is a novel fluidics cartridge. All aspects of assay processing from introduction, preparation, amplification, and detection to waste collection are handled on the low-cost, removable cartridge with configurable fluidics. But the key to performance in the diagnostic industry is the marriage of microarray and microfluidic technologies in a precision automated instrument. This is implemented with a low-cost fluorescence imaging system and image analysis software package that produces an easy-to-use sample-to-answer system for a broad range of diagnostic applications.
"While the software is an industry standard, new users quickly acclimate and can be productive team members within a matter of days using examples and Developer Zone VIs, enabling all members of our small team to rapidly prototype and revise instruments."
-Rob Smith, Akonni Biosystems
Daedalus Innovations
Daedalus Innovations LLC is a high-technology company that specializes in developing unique instrumentation for scientific research and medical applications. Its in-house staff designs and builds its products to maintain full control of the process and allow for a more streamlined relationship with the company's customers. Positron emission tomography (PET) is a powerful noninvasive medical diagnosis technique that requires the injection of short-lived radioactive tracer compounds. The current synthesis instrumentation for these compounds is not readily customizable for deploying novel compounds that enhance the diagnostics capability of PET. Daedalus intends to use its expertise to develop an instrument to fill this niche.
"We chose National Instruments products for this build because they improve our time to market and allow our developers to be more focused on meeting and incorporating the functional demands of the customer."
-Ronald Peterson, Daedalus Innovations
DNA Medicine Institute
The DNA Medicine Institute’s mission is to advance patient care, alleviate human suffering, and treat disease through innovative products. The institute is developing an approach to shrink an entire hospital’s testing center to a point-of-care device. The sensor is able to analyze assay suites using a single drop of blood, allowing rapid detection of disease states anywhere and anytime.
"NI Single-Board RIO technology is uniquely suited for rapid development of our point-of-care sensor, allowing us to deploy embedded technology in a seamless manner from R&D to product in record time. This new technology, combined with LabVIEW's ease of use and NI's legendary support, has allowed us to select it without the slightest hesitation."
-Eugene Chan, DNA Medicine Institute
EndoTools Therapeutics
EndoTools Therapeutics (ETT) is a Belgian start-up that offers flexible endoscopic tools. ETT's main objective is to provide gastroenterologists the tools that enable true digestive tract surgery without scars (in other words, via natural pathways like the mouth and the esophagus). In that regard, the company is developing a prototype called Endomina. Endomina consists of two motorized therapeutic channels in which tools can be inserted. These channels, anchored to the gastroenterologist's endoscope, have many degrees of freedom. Therefore, the tools inserted within can act like the surgeon's hands, enabling complex movements inside the digestive tract such as cutting or suturing.
"We chose NI products for their ease of use, robustness, and flexibility. Even though we are electronics engineers, and could have designed a proprietary system, NI products were a logical choice for us, as time to market couldn't have been shorter."
-Nicolas Cauche, EndoTools Therapeutics
Home Dialysis Plus
Home Dialysis Plus (HD+), addresses the rising demand for hemodialysis services resulting from the near epidemic growth of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The application of advanced microscale technologies to home hemodialysis systems produces improved clinical outcomes at lower costs for service providers struggling to meet the growing demand for cost-effective, home-based treatment solutions. HD+ is developing a home hemodialysis system to offer improved health outcomes through ultra patient-friendly, portable home hemodialysis machines. Via the use of patented MECS technology along with exclusively licensed HP inkjet technology, the HD+ system is intended to be highly efficient and more cost-effective than the dialysis options currently available. Because the size of the dialyzer (the blood "filter" component) and the water pasteurization unit are both dramatically reduced, the overall dialysis system is expected to shrink to the size of a piece of carry-on luggage, offering patients the ability to dialyze in the privacy and safety of their own home or on the road. Also thanks to the technology, the system will allow patients the ability to dialyze longer and slower (a pace that is more like natural 24/7 kidney function) using less material, which directly results in reduced treatment costs. The HD+ is an "all in one" treatment solution, requiring no adjunct machinery. Unlike current home and in-center machines, the HD+ system will have the ability to create dialysate in real time. Disposable dialyzers and "single serving" dialysate cartridges will be used on a per-treatment basis.
"Home Dialysis Plus has selected NI solutions to support its development efforts, owing to the impressive level of flexibility and ease of use of its LabVIEW software."
-Julie Wruzel, Home Dialysis Plus
LaserGen
LaserGen is a Houston-based biotechnology company commercializing a next-generation DNA sequencing system. It has developed two technologies to bring fast, cheap, and accurate DNA sequencing on to a portable platform. The company will integrate its novel sequencing chemistry, Lightning Terminators, with its highly sensitive detection technique, Pulsed Multiline Excitation, in a briefcase-sized portable instrument. This revolutionary DNA sequencing platform will improve read accuracy and genome quality to produce higher-grade genomes for thousands of dollars within a week compared to existing solutions costing hundreds of thousands of dollars over months.
"We're excited to integrate National Instruments hardware and software into our DNA sequencing platform because of the time and cost savings in instrumentation development. LaserGen's strength is in chemistry development, and NI products allow us to focus on the chemistry."
-David Hertzog, LaserGen
Quantum Dental Technologies
Quantum Dental Technologies (QDT Inc.) is a new Canadian company specializing in the field of oral health care. Commercializing the results of research generated at the University of Toronto, it has developed The Canary Dental Caries Detection System, a revolutionary approach to the early detection and treatment of tooth decay without using X-rays. When laser light is shone on a tooth, the tooth glows (luminescence) and releases heat (photothermal effect). As tooth decay grows, the heat and light signals change. Once detected, the decay can be halted and reversed following application of preventive therapies. Early detection saves teeth and long-term dental costs.
"We have been working with NI DAQ products for many years at the R&D level. When we decided to productize our technology (PTR-LUM), we opted for NI products since they offer multifunction capabilities such as imaging, virtual tool development, and signal and data processing."
Rapid Diagnostek is an early-stage company developing a biosensor-based diagnostic platform that offers high sensitivity results in 60 seconds in one simple step. The platform detects pathogens, proteins, and biomolecules in blood, urine, water, or other liquids. The company's objective is to reduce the patented technology to a handheld battery-powered electronic instrument that uses an easily mounted single-use disposable sensor. The device must perform effectively in either sophisticated, or low-resource, low-skill environments to address the needs in markets totaling $14B USD including human and veterinary diagnostics, agriculture, biodefense, food safety, and environmental monitoring.
"The combined ease of developing FPGA applications and the superb data acquisition and analysis capabilities of LabVIEW provide a powerful platform for rapid application development. Rapid Diagnostek will be able to reach its commercialization milestone using these products."
-Richard Van Deusen, Rapid Diagnostek
Serica Technologies
Serica Technologies is a growth-stage medical device company focused on developing its proprietary silk-based biomaterial platform technology for human tissue repair and regeneration. Serica is developing a first-of-its-kind solution for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) repair to recreate a fully functional ACL with complete native mechanical and physiological design characteristics. Serica's team of engineers and scientists is located in a state-of-the-art 22,000-square-foot office, R&D, and manufacturing facility in Medford, Massachusetts, where readily available raw materials are developed into finalized, sterile products using custom-designed proprietary processes. In a tightly controlled GMP environment, robust and reliable manufacturing process control is crucial to the company's success.
"In a rapid development environment, National Instruments hardware and software has been invaluable to our engineers by allowing us to quickly develop new processes and make changes to our current processes without significant time and money investments."
-Rebecca Abbott, Serica Technologies
Xemed
Xemed seeks to improve the diagnosis and management of lung disease by developing a breathable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent that produces images of regional lung function. A hyperpolarized gas inhaled by the patient from a small bag uses existing MRI scanner technology to provide images of regional gas flow. More sophisticated protocols reveal the regional health of the lungs' alveolar microstructure and gas exchange through these tissues into the bloodstream. These unprecedented images allow physicians to accurately determine the severity of diseases such as COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), interstitial lung disease, asthma, and cystic fibrosis; plan their management strategies; and monitor their patients' progress. No ionizing radiation is involved, improving safety over other methods.
"National Instruments provides field-proven hardware and software that enable Xemed to iterate through design options, ease the transition from lab to clinic, and deliver the product to market faster than would be possible with traditional languages."
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