Fairway sponsors  "Best Medical Device" award winner OrthoIntrinsics, LLC at the 2010 Rice Business Plan Competition

The Best International Team Award for $2,500 went to fourth place overall winner OrthoIntrinsics from London School of Economics and Rice University. OrthoIntrinsics is developing a patent-pending medical device, PRIME, that can directly and accurately measure internal hand strength. Used as an outcome measurement tool, PRIME can significantly improve clinical practice and promote evidence based medicine. They also won Best Medical Device and third place overall in the elevator pitch for a total cash prize of $11,250.

More on Rice University Business Plan Competition here

More on OrthoIntrinsics here

Fairway attends SPIE conference “Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing”

This year marks the 11th anniversary of a SPIE conference “Photons Plus Ultrasound: Imaging and Sensing” founded by Alexander Oraevsky in 1999.  This Conference is the main forum for the community of biomedical optoacoustics, which drives its continuous and dynamic growth. The corresponding number of inventions, peer-reviewed publications and conference abstracts presented by our community in the past 11 years is unmatched by any other research community of similar size.  It is significant that this year’s conference was the biggest ever--with over 130 papers presented.  The reports presented this year can be characterized as very mature, with deep theories and experiments performed in live subjects or equally complex animal models. 

The technologies developed by our community, optoacoustic (photoacoustic) imaging and sensing, attracts continuously growing interest from the medical imaging industry. 

In order to recognize the leading researchers and attract young investigators to the field, in 2005 our company established the Best Paper Award.  The following Best Papers have been presented:

2005  - “Acoustically modulated x-ray phase contrast and vibration potential imaging” by A.C. Beveridge, C.J. Bailat, T.J. Hamilton, S. Wang, C. Rose-Petruck, Brown Univ.; V.E. Gusev, Univ. du Maine; G.J. Diebold, Brown University.

2006: Technical considerations in quantitative blood oxygenation measurement using photoacoustic microscopy in vivo “, by K.I. Maslov, M. Sivaramakrishnan, H. F. Zhang, G. Stoica, L.V. Wang, Texas A&M University. 

2007: "Detection and noninvasive diagnostics of breast cancer with two color laser optoacoustic imaging system”, by S.A. Ermilov, A. Stein, A. Conjusteau, R.R. Gharieb, R. Lacewell, T. Miller, S. Thompson, P. Otto, B. McCorvey, T. Khamapirad, M. Leonard, and A.A. Oraevsky (Fairway Medical Technologies (Houston, TX), Seno Medical Instruments (San Antonio, Texas), University of Texas Cancer Therapy and Research Center (San Antonio, TX) and University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas.

2008: “3D photoacoustic imaging system for in vivo studies of small animal models”, by E.Z. Zhang, J. Laufer, R. B. Pedley, P. Beard, University College London, UK.

2009:  “3D photoacoustic imaging system for in vivo studies of small animal models” by H-P. Brecht, , Fairway Medical Technologies, Houston, TX and Seno Medical Instruments, San Antonio, TX.

2009 (the second best paper) “Combined ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging of pancreatic cancer using nanocage contrast agents” by K. Homan, J. Shah, S. Gomez, H. Gensler, A.B. Karpiouk, L. Brannon-Peppas, and S.Y. Emelianov, The Univ. of Texas at Austin.

2009 (the Best Poster)“Enhanced sensitivity targeted photoacoustic molecular imaging agents in living mice”, A. de la Zerda, Z. Liu, C. Zavaleta, Suni Bodapati, S. Vaithilingam, T-J. Ma, Ö. Oralkan, X. Chen, B.T. Khuri-Yakub, H. Dai, S.S. Gambhir, Stanford University, CA.

2009 (the second Best Poster): “Monitoring wound healing in mouse microvasculature using optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy, S. Hu, K.I. Maslov, L.V. Wang, Washington University in St. Louis, MO.

This year 2010, the Best Paper Award went to the presenting author Konstantin Maslov, and his coauthors Geng Ku and Lihong V. Wang, Washington University in St. Louis (United States) for the presentation entitled “Photoacoustic microscopy with submicron resolution”. The Best Poster Award was given to the presenting author Min Qu and her coauthors Mohammad Mehrmohammadi, Srivalleesha Mallidi, Pratixa Joshi, Yun-Sheng Chen, Kimberly Homan, and Stanislav Emelianov, The Univ. of Texas at Austin (United States) for the poster entitled “Combined photoacoustic and magneto-motive ultrasound imaging”.

The Board of Directors and the management of Fairway Medical Technologies would like to congratulate the winners and thank all the contributors to this conference for making it another great success! 

Fairway Medical Technologies To Develop Biosensor For Blood Pathogens And Warfare Threats

Fairway Medical Technologies, Inc. has received a $900,000, 3-year contract from the Department of the Navy to apply its optoacoustic technology to the real-time detection of blood borne pathogens and biological warfare agents under battlefield conditions. This grant is part of a larger, $3 million project led by Prof. Randolph Glickman, Principal Investigator from the University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHSC) at San Antonio.

The grant, entitled "Rapid identification of pathogenic agents in biological samples using pulsed laser optoacoustic spectroscopy with targeted nanoparticle contrast agents," will be carried out as a collaborative project between UTHSC, Fairway Medical Technologies and the Naval Health Research Center Detachment Directed Energy Bioeffects Laboratory at Brooks City-Base.

Fairway Awarded $3.8 Million Federal Funding for Phase II Research Using Optoacoustic Technology for Early Cancer Detection

New federal funding totaling $3.8 million will support Phase II research into breast and prostate cancer detection using a laser optoacoustic imaging technology developed by Fairway Medical Technologies.

“Prostate cancer strikes one in six men in America”
.The research funding includes authorization of two National Cancer Institute grants:

• A $2.7 million Phase II grant from The National Institutes of Health-National Cancer Institute (NIH-NCI) to further develop the imaging technology in laboratory animal tests, and to explore its use in attacking cancer tumor cells.

• A $1.1 million SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) Phase II grant by the National Cancer Institute to develop a commercial medical imaging system for early detection of prostate cancer that is able to provide real time visualization of small prostate cancers and to guide prostate biopsy procedures.

The optoacoustic technology will be introduced as a real-time screening tool for breast cancer detection and diagnosis, an estimated $5.9 billion market in North America, by Seno Medical Instruments of San Antonio, which has purchased the technology and entered into a long-term development agreement with Fairway. Seno will also provide development funding for the technology’s initial commercialization steps.