Michelson Diagnostics Limited (MDL), the UK manufacturer of multi-beam optical coherence tomography (OCT) scanners, has announced the delivery of a unit to its first US customer.
The EX1301 OCT microscope is being used by the Center for Pharmacogenomics at Washington University in St Louis for cardiology research studying the dynamics of fruit-fly hearts.
The fruit fly (Drosophila) is widely used in genomics research and the OCT microscope is capable of performing a whole-body scan of the live insect at a resolution of better than 10 microns and at frame-rates of more than 35fps.
This enables scientists such as Prof Gerald Dorn, needleman professor and director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics at Washington University, to capture video sequences of the beating fruit-fly heart and extract precision measurements of the cardiac contraction and relaxation.
Dorn said: 'The power of Drosophila genetics in combination with this turn-key platform for physiological analysis is tremendous and I expect integration of novel physiological read-outs with gene manipulation in flies to rapidly impact molecular cardiovascular research and other areas such as developmental biology.' His laboratory studies many factors relating to how the heart adapts to increased stress and how these adaptive mechanisms ultimately fail.
The multi-disciplinary and highly interactive environment provides an excellent foundation in molecular biology, cardiac physiology and mechanics, biochemistry and pharmacology and, for those interested in translational studies, genetic epidemiology and applied genomics.
With this sale, MDL has established its first foothold in the US.
It recently opened a US sales and support office.
A demonstration OCT unit is based in the US for customer trials and demonstrations.
The company is currently proceeding with plans to obtain a 510(k) for its Vivosight OCT scanner to enable its sale for clinical applications in the US.
