Alliance to Create Ultrasound Interface for Researchers

A two-year US$1.98 million research contract from the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) has been awarded to Siemens Medical Solutions (Erlangen, Germany) to develop and evaluate a new research interface for ultrasound that will offer researchers more access to imaging options and to the raw data gathered by ultrasound systems.

For the first 12-18 months, Siemens will develop software for the interface and generate user manuals to support the software's distribution to the research community. Siemens will partner with Duke University (Durham, NC, USA) and the University of Rochester (NY, USA) to evaluate and perfect the final software package. The research project is expected to result in a commercially available package. Initially, the interface will be developed for Siemens' Sonoline Antares ultrasound platform.

Currently, researchers must choose to use either relatively crude "home-made” instruments or commercially available devices that do not offer flexibility for customizing the instrument. The new interface will place advanced capabilities in the hands of ultrasound researchers worldwide, says Siemens. This may lead to a wave of valuable ultrasound innovations, similar to the innovations that were developed some years ago for magnetic resonance imaging.

"We intend to create an alternate user interface that will make it easier for researchers to control the ultrasound system as a research tool, while maintaining its full capabilities as a clinical machine,” said Levin Nock, Ph.D., the contract's project manager and a senior staff scientist in ultrasound innovations for Siemens.





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