Tyndall to play major role in European project

Tyndall’s expertise in the integration of photonic and electronic devices is being leveraged as part of a European project.

this is to mass-produce miniaturised medical instruments for detection and tracking of eye disease.

These devices represent a technological leap in the diagnosis and monitoring of eye diseases including Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), Diabetic Retinopathy (DR), and Glaucoma.

Together, these three diseases represent the world’s leading causes of low vision and blindness.

There are over 30 million blind and partially sighted persons in Europe.

Tyndall’s Photonics Packaging Group will reduce the size of well-established diagnostic tools to go into a new handheld, mobile device.

Typically, 80% of the manufacturing cost of these sophisticated devices is in photonics packaging and integration.

They connect the sensor and diagnostic technologies on the device chip to the outside interface.

Tyndall’s Photonics Packaging Group

Tyndall’s Photonics Packaging Group has received €600K in funding to develop the highly miniaturised photonic and electronic chip-technologies.

They have leveraged their world-leading expertise in this technology to minimise costs and enable high-volume manufacturing.

The new, low-cost ophthalmology instruments will be designed for use in GP offices. They will enable patients to be tested locally rather than traveling to centralised clinical laboratories or hospitals.

This important evolution to point-of-care ophthalmic diagnostics and therapy will significantly reduce both the pressure on healthcare systems and the time to diagnosis.

Prompt diagnosis and treatment of diseases like Age-Related Macular Degeneration is absolutely vital in preventing vision loss.

A delay between the onset of symptoms and diagnosis can result in sight deterioration.

The new European Handheld Optical Coherence Tomography (HandheldOCT) project brings together engineers and scientists from distinguished research institutions and companies across Europe.

This is to develop a handheld ophthalmic imaging device for affordable mobile Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) medical imaging.

The Project has been awarded an overall grant of €6 million euros from Horizon 2020, the EU program for research and innovation.

Professor Peter O’Brien, head of the Photonics Packaging Group explained:

“At Tyndall, we have developed expertise in producing extremely complex medical devices within a very small footprint.

We have demonstrated this capability to miniaturise complex technologies many times, from cardio-vascular diagnostic instruments to minimally invasive surgical guidance instruments.

The new Handheld OCT project follows the same path, using the latest advances in device packaging and integration technologies to develop a more affordable and versatile instrument for eye examinations.”

“These unique capabilities place Ireland in a strong position to take the lead in the development and commercialisation of next-generation miniaturised medical devices,” added Peter Smyth, Commercial Director at Tyndall.

“Ireland is the second-largest medical device exporter in the EU with over €12.6 billion annually.

This new innovation in the development of a handheld ophthalmic medical diagnosis device will ensure that Ireland remains one of the important medical device manufacturing hubs for Deep Tech ICT for Health innovation, in which Tyndall is a world leader.”

ABOUT THE HANDHELD OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY PROJECT

The Handheld Optical Coherence Tomography (HandheldOCT) project has been awarded a grant of 6 million Euros from Horizon 2020, the EU program for research and innovation.

The project partners are Tyndall National Institute, Ireland; Medical University Vienna, Austria; IMEC Interuniversitair Micro-Electronica Centrum, Belgium; AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Austria; Innolume GmbH, Germany; Nanoscribe GmbH, Germany; and Carl Zeiss AG, Germany.

ABOUT TYNDALL NATIONAL INSTITUTE

Tyndall is a leading European research centre in integrated ICT (Information and Communications Technology) materials, devices, and systems.

It is one of Ireland’s six National Labs, specialising in both electronics and photonics.

Tyndall works with industry and academia to transform research into products in its core market areas of electronics, communications, energy, health, agri-tech & the environment.

With a network of over 200 industry partners and customers worldwide, they are focused on delivering human and economic impact from excellence in research.

A research flagship of University College Cork, Tyndall is home to a research community of 600 people of 52 nationalities.

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