Pensievision is developing groundbreaking three-dimensional (3D) medical imaging and diagnostics technologies for early-stage detection and analysis of cervical cancers.
While initially focusing on cervical cancer, the company’s platform technology could also be applied to imaging and diagnostics of other cancers throughout the body,
including in dark and confined spaces, such as the artery.
ABOUT US
Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, and 80% of cases occur in the developing world. It is the leading cause of death from cancer among women in developing countries, where it causes about 190,000 deaths each year.
A lack of effective screening programs aimed at detecting and treating precancerous conditions is a key reason for the much higher cervical cancer incidence in developing countries. Although screening efforts based on Pap smears have been introduced in these areas, many have achieved only limited success, for a number of reasons, including limited access to laboratory services, lack of follow-up diagnostic, shortage of trained and skilled personnel, and cost effectiveness.
Pensievision is developing innovative three-dimensional (3D) medical imaging technology for point of care, early-stage detection and analysis of cervical cancers. This device is favorable over other screening methods for ease of use, accessibility, and cost. Most important, the screening and diagnostics does not require lab results and additional visits to the clinics.
The company’s longer term plan is to leverage this platform technology to develop, clinically test, and market a miniaturized, endoscopic, 3D-imaging device (with accompanying proprietary diagnostics software) that will leverage infrared and liquid lens technologies, to take with one click, multi-focal images in dark, confined spaces (such as arteries) throughout the body. This technology offers a transformative approach for carrying out effective and substantially lower cost screening, monitoring, and diagnosis of potentially dangerous tumors
ABOUT US
Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, and 80% of cases occur in the developing world. It is the leading cause of death from cancer among women in developing countries, where it causes about 190,000 deaths each year.
A lack of effective screening programs aimed at detecting and treating precancerous conditions is a key reason for the much higher cervical cancer incidence in developing countries. Although screening efforts based on Pap smears have been introduced in these areas, many have achieved only limited success, for a number of reasons, including limited access to laboratory services, lack of follow-up diagnostic, shortage of trained and skilled personnel, and cost effectiveness.
Pensievision is developing innovative three-dimensional (3D) medical imaging technology for point of care, early-stage detection and analysis of cervical cancers. This device is favorable over other screening methods for ease of use, accessibility, and cost. Most important, the screening and diagnostics does not require lab results and additional visits to the clinics.
The company’s longer term plan is to leverage this platform technology to develop, clinically test, and market a miniaturized, endoscopic, 3D-imaging device (with accompanying proprietary diagnostics software) that will leverage infrared and liquid lens technologies, to take with one click, multi-focal images in dark, confined spaces (such as arteries) throughout the body. This technology offers a transformative approach for carrying out effective and substantially lower cost screening, monitoring, and diagnosis of potentially dangerous tumors
ABOUT US
Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, and 80% of cases occur in the developing world. It is the leading cause of death from cancer among women in developing countries, where it causes about 300,000 deaths each year.
A lack of effective screening programs aimed at detecting and treating precancerous conditions is a key reason for the much higher cervical cancer rates in developing countries. Although screening efforts based on pap smears have been introduced in these areas, many have achieved only limited success, for a number of reasons, including limited access to laboratory services, lack of follow-up diagnostic, shortage of trained and skilled personnel, and cost effectiveness.
Pensievision is developing innovative three-dimensional (3D) medical imaging technologies for point of care, early-stage detection and analysis of cervical cancers. Our technology is favorable over other screening methods due to ease of use, accessibility, and low cost. Most importantly, neither the screening nor diagnostics requires lab results or additional visits to the clinic.
The company’s long-term plan is to leverage this platform technology to develop, clinically test, and market a miniaturized, endoscopic, 3D-imaging device (with accompanying proprietary diagnostics software). This will leverage infrared and liquid lens technologies to take one click, multi-focal images in dark and confined spaces throughout the body. This technology offers a transformative approach for carrying out effective and substantially lower-cost screening, monitoring, and diagnosis of potentially dangerous tumors.
TECHNOLOGY
To fulfill the multiple strategies of the World Health Organization (WHO) for preventing and treating cervical cancer in a wide variety of conditions around the world, we created a cost effective, portable, universal multi-functional device with innovative hardware and software. This device offers capabilities to both replace and improve upon traditional colposcopy for the detection and treatment of pre-cancers of the cervix. Using techniques previously implemented for the operation of NASA instruments outside of Earth, we have achieved a device with one-click, all-focus, 3D imaging using only a single perspective; minimal training is required by the user.
Both software and hardware capabilities are well-suited to telemedicine and remote robotic operation, borrowing from mission control strategies previously used for driving NASA’s rovers on Mars. A tool module on the novel device allows for single-visit patient treatment and/or sample collection for follow-up laboratory analysis. We presently have two versions of the technology prototype: (1) a liquid lens-based endoscope, compact enough to operate within the vaginal canal, and (2) a next-generation, fiber-based, micro endoscope, compact enough to operate in extremely confined spaces of the human body, such as within the cervical opening. Our long-term goal is to enable screening of cervical pre-cancers both inside the cervical opening as well as on the outside surface. Our dual-approach hardware developments present invaluable steps toward these aims.
Pensievision's 3D rendering uses computational tools originally developed for high-resolution imaging with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
Infrared images from the IRAC camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope
3D rendering of a model cervical tumor, produced by Pensievision's CervImage™
PRODUCTS
CervImage™ is a point-of-care, 3D imaging and diagnostics medical device for early stage cervical cancer screening and analysis. It is designed to be favorable over existing screening methods for ease of use, accessibility, and cost. Most importantly, the screening and diagnostics do not require waiting for lab results or additional patient visits to the clinic, and could even be coupled with a patented formulated therapeutic (that Pensievision has access to), as part of a screen-and-treat approach.
CervImage™ could disrupt the existing screening guidelines of a 2-phase screening strategy (Pap
smear followed by colposcopy if abnormal), by offering a single-phase screening strategy that offers similar or better screening results to colposcopy (with added data analytics which colposcopy does not provide), at a significantly lower cost comparable to earlier stage screening methods, such as Pap smear and HPV
TEAM
Pensievision's core and advisory team of world-class experts in the fields of imaging, nanotechnology, cancer research, and business, with successful track records of founding 12 successful Biotech companies, several of which are now public, while others acquired for a combined US$1B dollars.
Joseph Carson, Ph.D
Dr. Joseph Carson is the Chief Technology Officer of Pensievision and an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the College of Charleston. His primary field of expertise is in the development of novel imaging software and hardware, for astronomy and medical imaging applications. He has served as Principal Investigator for multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA. Dr. Carson is a Fulbright scholar, has published over 100 scientific papers, and was recognized both by TIME Magazine and CNN for his work in the imaging discovery of extrasolar planets.
Yu-Tsueng Liu, M.D., Ph.D
Dr. Liu is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and Director of the Biomarker Laboratory in the Moores Cancer Center. He is the Principal Investigator of the National Institute of Health (NIH) grant that has supported the initial research that served as the basis for the 3D imaging system development.
Sadik Esener, Ph.D
Dr. Esener is a Professor of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and Director of the new billion-dollar cancer research center. Previously he was Professor of Nano Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering at UCSD and also Co-Director of UCSD's Center for Nano-Medicine and Engineering, Institute of Engineering. Dr. Esener is the founder of five companies, and has led several DARPA-sponsored Industry consortiums.
Dennis Carson, M.D
Dr. Carson is a professor of Medicine at UCSD, the Director Emeritus of the Moores Cancer Center, and the recent Director of the Shenzhen University Cancer Center (China). He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and is one of the world’s most respected cancer researchers. He developed the drug 2CDA (“Leustatin”) for treatment of hairy cell leukemia. Dr. Carson is the founder of six biotech companies. He has published nearly 450 scientific papers and is an inventor on more than 60 U.S. and international patents.
Tal Almog
Tal Almog is a technology executive with vast international experience, forming and leading teams to develop, implement, and support complex, business critical technology solutions to top Fortune 500 companies. He was recently Chief Operating Officer for Maintenancenet, a cloud-based software company acquired by Cisco. Mr. Almog is the recipient of the San Diego Magazine’s 2015 “Top Technology Executive” award and is the President of Pensievision.
Benjamin Carson, Esq
Benjamin Carson is the VP of business development at Pensievision, where he drives collaborations with NGOs and universities both domestically and internationally. He is a California business attorney, specializing in legal issues facing high-tech start-up companies, including: corporate law, intellectual property, employee contracts, and financing.
Stanley McAfee
Stanley McAfee has a background in astrophysics and is leading our software and engineering efforts.
Kevin Gainey
Kevin Gainey co-leads the hardware development and testing for Pensievision.
NEWS
A second NPR Interview with Co-Founder Joe Carson
Pilot program results published in the Journal of Translational Medicine
NPR Interview with Co-Founder Joe Carson