SPIE Translational Research Award for HEMOCOVID project related work
Award recognizes outcomes-based studies that can change the lives of patients
SPIE’s Photonics West event, a leading annual photonics technology event that takes place annually in San Francisco, is attended by thousands of photonics researchers and industry professionals from around the world. This year’s in person event took place at the San Francisco Moscone Conference Center 22-27 January (“on demand” 21-27 February for participants unable to participate in person)
ICFO Postdoctoral research Dr Lorenzo Cortese in the Medical Optics group led by ICREA Prof Dr Turgut Durduran, presented a paper entitled “Non-invasive bedside assessment of microvascular and endothelial health in severe Covid-19 patients”. This multi-center study, involving more than 50 co-authors, details work on the HEMOCOVID-19 and VASCOVID projects and was awarded the SPIE Translational Research Award, recognizing outcomes-based studies that can change the lives of patients.
HEMOCOVID-19 and VASCOVID projects aim to introduce and test clinically a portable, non-invasive and real-time health monitoring platform for the stratification of COVID-19 patients according to the urgency of their need for aggressive respiratory therapy and to prognose further unexpected deterioration of their respiratory status.
At the very beginning of the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, ICFO came up with the idea of using NIRS to monitor Covid-19 patients. They adapted a set of 10 commercial near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) devices and distributed them to clinical partners in six different countires to carry out a large, multi-center pilot clinical research campaign aiming to characterize the microvascular health in patients entering in the ICU with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The project was entitled HEMOCOVID-19 and is coordinated by ICFO and Hospital Parc Taulí de Sabadell. It now encompasses a consortium including 14 participating institutions including ten hospitals, from six countries.
Based on the HEMOCOVID-19 experience, its sister project VASCOVID aims to develop a portable biophotonics platform that will address the shortcomings of currently available NIRS methods. During its first year of life, the project has been working to include new diffuse optics spectroscopy techniques to help assess clinicians in management strategies for the evaluation of microvascular health in COVID-19 patients. VASCOVID is supported by the European Commission, is coordinated by ICFO, led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Turgut Durduran. It involves six more partners from Spain, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands.
Acknowledgements:
These projects have received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101016087, Ajuntament de Barcelona, Fundació CELLEX Barcelona, Fundació Mir-Puig, and La Marató TV3.