I-Corps: Thermal Infrared Sensitivity Enhancer Supported Breast Cancer Screening Method

Award ID: 2024746

The Broader impacts/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of thermal imaging tools to target breast cancer screening. With future incorporation of artificial intelligence, a home screening kit is envisioned that detects breast cancer without the assistance of technicians or doctors. The large amount of data collected in the process could be used for computer analysis to further improve oncology diagnosis and treatment, saving thousands of lives. In addition, the method is painless, economical, and convenient, enabling broader screening. In the longer term, the enhanced thermal imaging tool used for screening may be also applied to screening and monitoring of other diseases. Other applications are far-ranging and include diagnosis of animal diseases, or improved integrated circuit inspection methods for the semiconductor industry. This I-Corps project is to explore development of the Thermal Infrared Sensitivity Enhancer (TISE), a thin film with an engineered materials structure, for thermography (use of a thermal camera to image temperature distributions). Laboratory results show that TISE improves the temperature resolution from 40 mK to approximately 3 mK, pushing the application boundary of ambient thermography. The proposed technology enables thermal cameras to capture more temperature details. In combination with a thermal infrared camera, the technology provides an enhanced thermography breast cancer screening method expected to offer similar sensitivity to mammography, the current standard. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Ruth Shuman