Astronomical Imaging for Clinical Applications: Next Generation Endoscopy

Clinical, point of care, biological imaging is challenging. Practical and environmental conditions restrict the ability to push the technology to the limits. A prime example is endoscopy, unquestionably a core diagnostic and assessment technology, which has remained largely unchanged since the original developments in the 60’s and 70’s. I will discuss aspects of a large, multi-disciplinary project to develop a new generation of endoscopy platforms, particularly designed for the exploration of lung disease in intensive care patients. Combining imaging and sensing this technology is based on a unique multi-core fibre bundle and molecular sensors that will simultaneously image and record key physiological and pathological events in the lung. This includes spatially identifying the location and type of any potential bacterial infection, a major cause of fatality in intensive care patients. This talk will explain how the fibre core must be multiplexed to achieve these goals. The key focus will be on the imaging solution, which takes inspiration from astronomy to recreate full image information from only a small subset of the cores of the fibre bundle.