New research programmes to MedTechLabs

This year’s call from MedTechLabs was launched in the spring and the decision to adopt two new research programmes was taken by the centre’s steering committee in early October. Johan Schuber, Executive Director of MedTechLabs, says that the approved programmes strengthen the centre’s focus on conducting clinically relevant research.

Current fetal monitoring methods have weaknesses and the researchers in this new programme aim to improve them to reduce the risk of organ failure in the baby during delivery. This is an important area of research that affects many patients and maternity services, not only in Sweden but also worldwide.  

The programme ‘Continuous lactate measurement and prevention of fetal hypoxia during delivery’ is led by Malin Holzmann, Karolinska Institutet (KI), and Saul Rodriguez Duenas, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). Malin Holzmmann is a senior physician at the Unit for Pregnancy and Childbirth at Karolinska University Hospital in Solna, Sweden, and an associate professor at KI. Saul Rodriguez Duenas is a senior lecturer at the Division of Electronics and Embedded Systems at KTH. The goal is to achieve continuous lactate measurement during labour, which would represent a completely new technology in healthcare with the potential to fundamentally change fetal monitoring.

The second research programme focuses on understanding how brain tissue changes when exposed to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, or brain tumours. With the increasing availability of drugs to treat these diseases, early detection of the diseases in time is becoming more important to slow down disease progression as effectively as possible.

The programme “Clinical application of next-generation brain magnetic resonance elastography for neurodegenerative diseases and brain tumours” is led by Rodrigo Moreno, KTH and Tobias Granberg, KI. Rodrigo Moreno is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Health Systems at KTH. Tobias Granberg is Senior Lecturer at the Division of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet. MR-Elastography (MRE) is already used today to diagnose liver diseases, but its complexity has so far hindered its clinical use for the diagnosis of brain diseases. The main objective of this multidisciplinary programme is to enable MRE to be performed also for the brain and to evaluate its clinical utility in neurodegenerative diseases and brain tumours. The project covers MRE technology from image acquisition and analysis to its use and evaluation in clinical trials. The goal is to enable clinical implementation in Region Stockholm within five years, thus contributing to better treatment for patients.

Research in both programmes is expected to start in January 2024.

MedTechLabs is an interdisciplinary centre for patient-oriented research that will contribute to breakthroughs in the development of medical technology with significance for the important challenges of healthcare and our major public diseases. In all programmes, researchers and clinicians with both technical and medical expertise collaborate. The centre is run jointly by KTH, Karolinska Institutet and Region Stockholm.

For more information, contact:

Johan Schuber
Executive Director of MedTechLabs

Phone: 08-790 67 64
E-mail: jschuber@kth.se

Website: www.medtechlabs.se

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/medtechlabsstockholm