The SpecTOM project (partnership between INESC TEC and U.Porto) was one of the winners of BIP PROOF 20/21, obtaining €10K of financial support for a proof of concept.
The project is developed by Rui Martins, a researcher at INESC TEC’s Centre for Applied Photonics (CAP), and Mário Cunha, a researcher at the Centre for Robotics in Industry and Intelligent Systems (CRIIS), with the support of Bruno Santos, from the Technology Licensing Office (SAL), namely in terms of technology transfer and valorisation.
The main objective of the project is to carry out a proof of concept of metabolic spectral tomography technology, i.e., the ability to generate non-invasive and compositional 3-D images of plant and animal tissues, using smart spectroscopy equipment already developed within the scope of the FCT project Metbots (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031124, PTDC/EEI-ROB/31124/2017).
According to the researchers involved in the project, the ability to infer the composition of different tissues and the internal structures of plants and animals, in a portable and non-invasive manner, has significant impact on the diagnosis of diseases and their lesions; by allowing the quantification of key metabolites, it is possible to make very accurate analyses about the state and/or evolution of the observed lesions, as well as about the treatment results.
One of the innovative elements of this technology is the visualisation of the results of the quantification process – with spatial differentiation -, which can become an important tool in terms of precision agriculture, veterinary and human medicine.
The BIP PROOF aims to create a system comprehending proofs of concept, in order to boost the realisation of value stages, crucial to promising research results. In this sense, proofs of concept can translate into the development of prototypes of technical feasibility, in vitro/in vivo testing, feasibility or market studies, etc., so that they can contribute to the maturation of technology and their introduction in the market.
The main sponsors of this edition were the Amadeu Dias Foundation and Santander Universities.
The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC and UP-FCUP.
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