Cambridge Raman Imaging selected to coordinate a European Union grant to transform cancer diagnosis and treatment

Cambridge Raman Imaging (CRI) has announced it was selected to coordinate a project that received a €3.3 million grant in the European Innovation Council’s (EIC) Transition call.

The project, called CHARM, aims to develop a medical device based on high-speed, low-cost Raman digital imaging technology and artificial intelligence to transform cancer diagnosis and treatment. The technology will analyze the molecular composition of patient tissue samples to distinguish cancerous from healthy cells without the need for chemical staining.

CHARM is a pan-European collaboration between CRI, the University of Cambridge, Italian institutions Politecnico Di Milano and Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche, the Jena University Hospital in Germany, and the firms INsociety from Italy and Inspiralia from Spain. The project coordinator is Dr. Matteo Negro, CRI’s Chief Technology Officer.

CRI is to receive €1.3 million of the grant, which is being made to its wholly-owned Italian subsidiary Cambridge Raman Imaging s.r.l.

CRI’s Raman imaging technology uses graphene-based ultra-fast fiber lasers to generate digital images of patient tissue for automatic analysis by artificial intelligence to support diagnosis. Because the images are digital, they can be viewed remotely, allowing histopathologists to work more efficiently and to support regions and countries short of qualified staff. The technology also potentially opens the way for personalized treatments for cancer.