Innovation in Action

A number of innovations born at Kellogg are now realizing their clinical potential, thanks to domestic and international patents and licensing agreements entered into over the past year.

Michigan Retinal Degeneration Questionnaire

In its impressive first year of availability, the Michigan Retinal Degeneration Questionnaire (MRDQ), developed by a team led by Kellogg Associate Professor K. Thiran Jayasundera, M.D., M.S., has already been licensed for two commercial and two institutional research applications.

The MRDQ is a patient-reported outcome tool for Inherited Retinal Degenerations (IRDs). Patient responses to the MRDQ generate qualitative and qualitative measurements of central vision, color vision, contrast sensitivity, scotopic function, photopic peripheral vision, mesopic peripheral vision, and photosensitivity.

“To incorporate the MRDQ into two multi-center clinical trials, one of the institutional licensees is translating the MRDQ into 10 languages and adminis- “tering it in 33 centers around the world,” notes Dr. Jayasundera. “The commercial licensees will be utilizing the MRDQ as part of clinical trials to evaluate new targeted therapies for IRDs.”

Photo-Mediated Ultrasound Therapy

Photo-Mediated Ultrasound Therapy (PUT), a patent-pending method and apparatus for removing microscopic blood vessels, has been licensed to a start-up company founded by its co-inventors, Kellogg’s Yannis Paulus, M.D., Xueding Wang, Ph.D., U-M Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Xinmai Yang, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kansas.

“PUT uses synchronized nanosecond laser pulses and ultrasound bursts to remove micro-vessels with greater precision and less risk to surrounding tissues than previous methods,” explains Dr. Paulus. For more on PUT, please see page 26.

Photoacoustic Physio-Chemical Tissue Analysis

A patent has been granted to Guan Xu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Biomedical Engineering, and his U-M colleagues Cheri Deng, Ph.D., Professor, Biomedical Engineering, and Paul Carson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, for a method of performing Photoacoustic Physio-Chemical Tissue Analysis.

The non-invasive technology uses the properties of both light (photo) and sound (acoustic) waves to generate a precise and nuanced image of tissue, and can be used to access hard-toreach areas like the inside of the eye.

“While other minimally-invasive imaging technologies show the structural characteristics of intraocular tissue, this technology also reveals molecular and chemical properties essential to diagnosis and targeted treatment,” Dr. Xu explains.

Photoacoustic Imaging to Diagnose Intraocular Tumors

Dr. Xu and Hakan Demirci, M.D., U-M Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Director of Ocular Oncology, have been granted a patent for their specific application of Photoacoustic Imaging to Diagnose Intraocular Tumors.

“By illuminating an intraocular tumor with a pulsed light source, the resulting heat and expansion of the tumor tissue produce waves in ultrasonic frequencies,” explains Dr. Xu. “We then use an ultrasound system to generate an image with high spatial resolution. The image contains diagnostic infor- mation such as the tissue components in the tumor and the architecture formed by the components.”