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Ocular Therapeutic Delivery Through Real-time Endoscopic B-scan OCT-guided Tools and Robotic Assistance

 

Project Title: Ocular Therapeutic Delivery Through Real-time Endoscopic B-scan OCT-guided Tools and Robotic Assistance

NIH Award Number: 

 

This is a 5-year collaborative project with Karen Joos at VUMC. 

 

Active Personnel:

  • Elan Ahronovich (2018-present)
  • Neel Shihora 

Previous Personnel:

  • Giuseppe Del. Guidice, Ph.D. (2017-2021)

 

Description

 

Emerging molecular, gene, and cell-based therapeutics targeting ocular diseases could prevent and potentially reverse cell degeneration and subsequent vision loss. However, reliable and safe delivery of these therapeutics into targeted ocular layers is an ongoing concern of the FDA, which may affect the advancement of these potentially life-changing new treatments. To increase delivery accuracy, reliability, safety, and ease of the new molecular therapeutic procedures, we propose to develop B-scan OCT-guided robotic-assisted subretinal therapeutic delivery techniques. 

Our group is collaborating with VUMC researchers Dr. Karen Joos and Dr. Jin-Hui Chen on developing OCT-guided robotic control algorithms for the targeted delivery of drugs into specific locations within the retina. As part of our research, we will be enabling robot-assisted hand-held tools and collaborative (hand-on-hand) robotic tools to assist and semi-automate the last step of targeted drug delivery. We will be comparing these modes of assistance via in-vivo studies, enucleated cadaveric eyes, and bench-top phantom models.    

Additional details about our planned research are available here

 

 

Publications

  1. E.Z. Ahronovich, J.H. Shen, T. J. Vadakkan, R. Prasad, K.M. Joos, N. Simaan, "A five degree-of-freedom mechanical arm with remote center of motion (RCM) device for volumetric optical coherence tomography (OCT) retinal imaging," Biomedical Optics Express 15, 1150-1162 2024.
  2. E.Z. Ahronovich, N. Shihora, J.H. Shen, K. Joos and N. Simaan, "Exploring An External Approach to Subretinal Drug Delivery via Robot Assistance and B-Mode OCT," 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), London, United Kingdom, 2023, pp. 6795-6801, doi: 10.1109/ICRA48891.2023.10161441.
  3. E.Z. Ahronovich, J.H. Shen, K.M. Joos, and N. Simaan, 2023. A five degree-of-freedom remote center of motion device for stable volumetric OCT imaging of the retina. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 64(8), pp.3444-3444.
  4. E.Z. Ahronovich, N. Simaan, & K.M. Joos (2021). A Review of Robotic and OCT-Aided Systems for Vitreoretinal Surgery. Advances in therapy, 38(5), 2114–2129. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12325-021-01692-z
  5. Del Giudice, G., Orekhov, A. L., Shen, J. H., Joos, K., & Simaan, N. (2021). Investigation of Micro-motion Kinematics of Continuum Robots for Volumetric OCT and OCT-guided Visual Servoing. IEEE/ASME transactions on mechatronics : a joint publication of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society and the ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division, 26(5), 2604–2615. https://doi.org/10.1109/tmech.2020.3043438