The Centre for New Technologies in Medicine (CNTM) develops new medical diagnostic techniques with special emphasis on the area of eye fundus imaging.

The eye offers unique opportunities to obtain in a non-invasive manner information on the body, in general and of the retina and brain in particular. It is, in fact, a window to the body.

CNTM is particularly interested in developing non-invasive methodologies that allow repeated observations and measurements in order to identify early alterations that may allow timely therapeutic interventions, e.g., precision medicine.

CNTM has been able to patent novel biomarkers of disease progression, such as microaneurysm turnover in diabetic retinopathy identified automatically by software developed in-house, the Retmarker®, developed in a partnership with Retmarker SA., and fluid quantification in the retinal diseases by identifying non-invasively changes in the Blood-Retinal Barrier in the retina, using a novel algorithm, the OCT-Leakage. CNTM is also engaged with EVICR.net in the development of the EVICR.net Eye Platform. This platform, composed of several components and microservices, will explore the Cloud computing capabilities for gathering high-quality ophthalmology data generated in Europe to allow the re-use of data and foster clinical research.

OCT-L – Patents: EP 3 289 565 B1 | US 11,234,591 B2

Retmarker – US 7,856,135 B1

A major effort is also being made in the validation and development of Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography for diagnosing progression of diabetic retinopathy and to develop methods involving artificial intelligence.