A team of Dartmouth engineers and cancer researchers is one of the first eight announced by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to receive up to $31 million through its Precision Surgical Interventions (PSI) program for their work in surgical image guidance.
Dartmouth Health surgeon Eric R. Henderson, MD, serves as the clinical director for the award while Lawrence M. Dagrosa, MD, and Elinar F. Sverrisson, MD, are the surgical investigators who will conduct clinical testing. Team leaders include Kimberly Samkoe, PhD, Keith Paulsen, PhD, Ryan Halter, PhD, and Scott Davis, PhD, all members of Dartmouth Cancer Center’s Translational Engineering in Cancer (TEC) Research Program. They will lead researchers at six collaborating organizations to develop a laparoscope-integrating imaging solution that will be especially helpful in prostate cancer surgeries.
The goal of the project is to be able to identify and locate critical structures such as nerves, vessels, ducts, or glands that currently cannot be imaged in real-time. They will use nerve-dyeing and ureter-dyeing contrast agents, in addition to vascular dyes, to cause these structures to fluoresce, or light up. They will then map and visualize the 3D shape and depth of the structures. With this capability, surgeons would be able to make rapid intra-operative decisions to avoid unnecessary injury to the patient.
Learn more about this award. An agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services, ARPA-H's contribution enables progress in the Biden Cancer Moonshot Initiative.