Inside Perspective

Rendered View of the Inside of the Colon Created from CT Scans, Color Coded to Assist Radiologists in Finding Polyps.

After I completed my engineering education, I worked for a medical device vendor and also a large engineering services firm, but over time I was ready for a change. I was attracted to the opportunity to conceive projects, find appropriate funding, and implement ideas, all offered by Creare. Given that I had enjoyed the entrepreneurial aspects of my previous jobs, I thought Creare would be a good fit for me. I particularly liked the fact that the technical direction of the company was determined by the engineers rather than a marketing department or outside investors. I was also excited about the idea of living in northern New England.

Shortly after joining Creare, I began to seek funding for work in an area that I knew well – development of signal processing algorithms for analysis of cardiac function. Soon thereafter, I was able to attract funding and launch several projects. During my first four years, I assembled a team of engineers with similar interests and we proceeded to develop a new diagnostic tool for a very common heart arrhythmia, as well as a system to help cardiologists visualize the electrical patterns within the heart during interventional procedures.

These projects were great for my start-up, but after a few years of working on familiar technical subjects, I wanted to broaden and diversify. By this time, it was clear that high-resolution, three-dimensional medical images had become a cornerstone in most every form of medicine. I was fascinated by visual imagery and decided to work on building a portfolio of projects in medical imaging; over the next five years, the team expanded as we focused our effort on this new area.

One of those projects, still ongoing, involves development of improved tools for use in colon cancer screening. Colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer-related death, is unique in that it slowly arises from precancerous polyps that fortunately can be detected in a screening exam and readily removed before they become cancerous. Unfortunately, the invasive nature of current screening tests limits compliance with the medical recommendation that everyone over age 50 undergo regular screening. The use of computed tomography (CT) imaging could provide the basis for non-invasive screening, provided that it can be made to be sufficiently accurate and inexpensive. The Creare group is developing automated imaging algorithms to enable radiologists to rapidly review the large volume of data produced during CT-based colon cancer screening. This is a very satisfying area of R&D – hopefully saving lives as the technology fully develops.

I continue to diversify my portfolio to satisfy my desire to learn, and to broaden my range of funding sources, a critical element in R&D work. Some of my newest projects involve subject areas that I would never have considered, even just a few years ago. I am currently investigating the reproductive systems of egg-laying chickens. This work is not intended to make better decisions at the grocery store, but much more importantly to develop a screening test for ovarian cancer (no screening test currently exists). Using chickens as an animal model, we have developed a method of measuring subtle changes in blood flow that may lead to detecting and locating small ovarian tumors before they become life threatening. The potential for biomedical engineering R&D to have a significant impact on the quality of human life is what motivates me to keep pushing the dimensions of my work.

The diversity of my work at Creare is terrific and the size of our company has afforded me the opportunity to make a significant impact on technical directions and our overall financial performance. And as I had planned, it’s also great to step outside the front door of my Vermont home for a walk in the woods or a cross-country ski after a beautiful snowfall.

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