The goal of this Career Acceleration Fellowship project is to explore a novel direction in Microwave Imaging, Dynamic Microwave Imaging (DMI), in clinical applications reaching far beyond breast cancer detection. In Dynamic Microwave Imaging, the goal is to image temporal changes in tissue, and not the tissue itself. This somewhat limits usability of DMI as an imaging technique on one hand, but at the same time it opens up totally new applications where standard Microwave Imaging (either radar or tomography) could not be applied. The idea of DMI came from the discovery during world's first clinical trial of microwave radar imaging system in Bristol in 2009.

During the clinical trials it was realised that the Microwave Imaging system was extremely sensitive to any changes occurring during the scan. Following this up it was then discovered that the local change in tissue properties can easily be detected and precisely located. Moreover, it was shown that this change in local properties of tissues can even be detected in very dense and heterogeneous breast tissues.

The project will focus on two applications, serving as Proof of Principle:

1. Nanoparticle contrast-enhanced Dynamic Microwave Imaging for cancer detection. The proposed work on 3D detection of nanoparticles is of great interest to researchers working in the cancer imaging field. However, DMI could also be used to find and evaluate the effectiveness of new cancer biomarkers, track nanoparticle-labelled cells or monitor delivery of nanoparticles for hyperthermia treatment.

2. Functional brain imaging using DMI radar system, as a general method, is also a promising concept for functional brain imaging. Development of the DMI system for functional brain imaging is timely related to current research activities in neuroscience. Functional imaging is used to diagnose metabolic diseases and lesions (such as Alzheimer's disease or epilepsy) and also for neurological and cognitive psychology research.

This novel interdisciplinary project connects the fields of electronic engineering, nanotechnology and medical physics. The proposed research project addresses one of the EPSRC strategic priorities: Towards next generation healthcare.