The Centre of New Technologies for Medicine (CNTM) develops new diagnostic techniques, with special emphasis on the area of imaging in ophthalmology.

The prevalence of eye diseases leading to vision loss such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma is increasing globally as the numbers of older people increase in populations around the world. Until recently, medical science had little to offer but with the advent of medical therapies more patients are given the hope of slowing or arresting visual initial decline, and in some situations it is even possible to reverse the trend toward progressive vision loss.

Fundus imaging is needed for early and accurate diagnosis, to guide the initiation of therapy and to evaluate the response to therapy of retinal diseases. New developments in fundus imaging offer new and particularly attractive perspectives for predicting development of systemic diseases such as coronary heart disease and stroke. Non-invasive fundus imaging to evaluate the entire human circulation is a mahor goal of the research projects of the unit.

CNTM has developed the concept of Multimodal Macula Mapping and is developing new tools to correlate information obtained from sequential fundus imaging.

The final objective of CNTM is to transfer technology innovations to Industry and, therefore, to the market. The excellence of the work developed in CNTM is well demonstrated by the present partnerships with Industry namely with Critical Health (Portugal), Pfizer Global (USA) and Carl Zeiss Meditec (USA), and by frequent publications in peer reviewed scientific journals.

The process of technology transfer is really initiated by innovation at the laboratory level well before the development of applications that can be tested in patients. Laboratory research, at the molecular and experimental animal levels, is being performed under the supervision of Francisco Ambrósio and has already led to R&D contracts with OM Pharma, Switzerland and BIAL, Portugal.

The work of this group has resulted in the following patents:
- Ocular Fluorometer for Clinical Use, US Patent n.º 6,013,034
- Method and Apparatus for Measuring Quantity of a Fluorochrome in a Biological Environment, WO/2008/067525
- System for Analysing Ocular Fundus Images, US Patent n.º 7,856,135

This Centre pursues the characterisation and validation of new technologies, as well as the construction of prototypes in different phases of development, inspection and calibration of opto-electronical medical devices. For this purpose, it has certified and calibrated equipment with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) traceability. These equipments include instruments enabling the analyses of spectrum in visible, infrared near, UV near and also the possibility of analysing laser beam profiles. It also has various detectors of light power at its disposal, in this way guaranteeing the necessary safety conditions and maintenance of equipment.

Areas of expertise

• Development of methodologies for the measurement of blood-retinal barrier (BRB) permeability in the human retina in vivo for fluorescein.
• Development of indirect, non-invasive, measurements of the Blood-Retinal Barrier based on Optical Coherence Tomography.
• Multimodal Macular Mapping. The gathering of information obtained through various imaging techniques in order to establish a correlation between various parameters of the retina providing this way a global vision of the ongoing alterations as well as its space-time relation.
• Processing of medical images. The application of the most recent processing/analytical techniques of medical images to the various types of eye fundus imaging, offers new perspectives on the subject, facilitating registration and follow-up in the daily medical practice.