Project description
Developing tools for faster, low-cost microscopy diagnosis
The treatment and prevention of infectious and chronic diseases are dependent on their early detection. Microscopy is the gold standard tool for the diagnosis of tens of these diseases, however it has barely changed since its conception 150 years ago. It still requires the presence of an expert microscopist to manually review samples under the microscope, which isn’t always practical or financially feasible. The EU-funded SpotLab project aims to address this problem by bringing microscopy to the digital era, enabling remote diagnosis to reduce the time, costs and distances involved in microscopy diagnosis. Its solution is based on a smartphone transformed into a portable, smart and low-cost medical device, a flexible telemedicine platform that can be tailored to multiple diagnosis protocols and AI models. The project aims to advance early detection and diagnosis through microscopy.
Objective
Early detection of both infectious diseases and chronic diseases plays a crucial role in all treatment and prevention strategies. Population ageing and healthcare budget pressures do not contribute to ease the pain under this scenario.
Optic microscopy is still the gold standard for diagnosing several tens of pathologies. However, physicians have been using almost the same technology to detect diseases for the past 150 years, by manually reviewing samples under a microscope. This requires the time of an expert analyst at the right place and at the right moment as the sample is been taken, something not always available and affordable.
SpotLab’s solution sits in the convergence of the physical and the digital world to reduce time, costs and distances of microscopy diagnosis. SpotLab is a diagnosis-as-a-service company based on three technological pillars: (1) a smartphone transformed into a portable, intelligent and low-cost medical device, manufactured with 3D printing and consumer electronics, (2) a flexible and easy to use telemedicine platform that can be tailored to multiple diagnosis protocols that is connected to the knowledge of worldwide physicians; and (3) a factory of AI models that prioritizes cases and assists diagnosis for multiple pathologies.
After 5 years of research at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, SpotLab S.L. was founded in 2017. We are a multidisciplinary orchestra with a diverse team of 14 people, internationally awarded and recognized by our capacity of creating responsible innovation and products in the digital health space.
SpotLab´s seed round allowed us to bring our product to TRL6. We need EU funding to complement our new investment round and industrialize our product (TRL6 to TLR9), obtain the relevant regulatory certifications (CE Mark); and validate its market disruption in dif
SpotLab´s team motivation is to create a positive impact in the world. We prefer to provide 1 million diagnoses at €1 than 1 diagnosis at €1 million
Fields of science
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseases
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsmicroscopy
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepathology
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationsmobile phones
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringmanufacturing engineeringadditive manufacturing
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
28040 MADRID
Spain
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.