A couple of star-gazing astronomers could help save your life. Dr Ben Panter and Professor Alan Heavens, from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Physics and Astronomy, developed a technology to analyse the starlight of distant galaxies, and now they’re using it for medical imaging. They realised that this technology, with its incredible processing speed, can apply to astronomy, medicine, or any field where incredibly large amounts of data present a problem.  They have built a company called Blackford Analysis to apply their algorithm to medical imaging and other fields.

Tom Finnie Photography

From looking at millions of galaxies in outer space to examining the minute details of medical images depicting hearts, brains, and bones, Blackford Analysis has shown amazing ingenuity and an ability to collaborate across disparate fields. These qualities have led to their rapid success, and to their receiving two awards – one for Innovation, and another for Collaboration (the latter sponsored by the Edinburgh Science Triangle) – at the Nexxus Life Science Awards (East) event in Edinburgh on 16 November.

“We’re delighted to win these awards – it’s a great reward for the effort that our team has put in over the years,taking this from a piece of blue skies research to a real clinical application – both technically and commercially. The support of Scottish Enterprise and the University of Edinburgh throughout this process has been considerable, and I’d really like to thank both bodies for recognising the potential of the idea at an early stage. We look forward to working with medical imaging companies to get our innovation into routine clinical use worldwide,”

said Dr Ben Panter, Chief Executive of Blackford Analysis, on accepting the two awards.

“Convergence of technology can greatly assist Scotland’s life science industry,”

said Graeme Boyle, Nexxus Director.

“The ability of the scientists at Blackford Analysis to transcend traditional boundaries and instigate cross-disciplinary collaborations has led to an incredibly innovative solution to a real technological and medical need.  Vision such as this is just what Scotland needs to keep its place on the global life science stage.”

The technology Ben and Alan developed, called MOPED, is an algorithm that has a remarkable capacity to compress data. They invented it because they wanted better data processing speed in their astronomy research – which it achieved, improving performance over standard techniques by a factor of one thousand and enabling the interpretation of spectra from half a million galaxies where previously only a few hundred had been possible. It soon became clear to them that this technology had many more applications.  The first one they are addressing is medical imaging.

The collaborative effort to move the star-gazing technology from the heights of Edinburgh’s Royal Observatory into the medical clinic started when Ben and Alan reached out to Dr Mark Bastin of the Scottish Funding Council Brain Imaging Research Centre. Funding from Scottish Enterprise enabled them to extend the team further with Drs Rob Tweedie and Will Hossack joining from the Institute of Physics. This multi-disciplinary team applied MOPED to the problem of aligning MRI and CT scan data, which can take many hours using standard techniques.

A modern radiology department increasingly deals with volumetric data – 3D scans from MRI or CT machines. While this can give much greater insight into many medical conditions, a key problem is the sheer size of the studies. Often gigabytes of data must be aligned before any interpretation can be made, particularly in clinical trials with multiple images taken over time.

This collaboration of Blackford Analysis Ltd, the Institute for Astronomy, a research and teaching group within the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh, and the SFC Brain Imaging Research Centre resulted in the MOPED-based Registration Engine for medical imaging. This technology is orders of magnitude faster than current software, and allows radiologists to efficiently line up, view and compare multiple images. It can speed up radiologists’ work, improve the quality and resolution of medical images, and accelerate analysis of imaging data. The collaborative effort was supported by a Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept Award and STFC funding.

Blackford Analysis was spun out from the University of Edinburgh in the summer of this year and attracted a six-figure seed investment. The company also received a SMART:SCOTLAND Feasibility Study Grant of £70K to extend the registration engine’s capabilities, and has attracted much interest and support from several multi-national medical imaging companies as well as from radiologists in the UK and US.  The company will demonstrate its technology at the Radiological Society of North America meeting in December and plans to launch the Registration Engine in 2011. This product could generate savings of many millions of pounds by increasing radiologists’ throughput.

The company also plans to expand its reach by developing further collaborations and exploring applications in other fields.  Ben won the THALES Scottish Technology Prize in 2009 for the application of this technology to Improvised Explosive Device detection, one of the many potential applications for the technology.

Runners up in the Nexxus 2010 Innovation Award (East) were Encap Drug Delivery for their DuoCap and Advanced Pest Solutions for Smidge that Midge insect repellent.

Runners up in the Nexxus 2010 Collaboration Award (East) – sponsored by Edinburgh Science Triangle – were Innova for their multiple collaborative partnerships in ProjectHydra, and Xeroshield for their collaboration with the Nonwovens Innovation Research Institute and Centre for Technical Textiles at Leeds University.

For further information contact Kate Fink, Marketing Communications Assistant, Nexxus T: 0131 200 6412,

M: 0780 577 4824, E: mailto:k.fink@nexxusscotland.com

A new software company founded by astronomy experts will embark on an ambitious program of business development at home and in the USA after securing a six-figure investment sum.

Blackford Analysis opens for business today as Scotland’s newest University spin-out company after attracting development cash from a range of investors.

Born out of research at the University of Edinburgh, the patented software was originally developed to determine the age of stars in the Universe. However the technology can be applied to many sectors where processing large amounts of data is routine, including seismic interpretation for oil and gas surveying, and fast image analysis for defence. Blackford’s initial focus has been in medical imaging, where its technology can improve the diagnosis process for MRI and CT scans by automatically preparing images for radiologists.

Dr Ben Panter, CEO of Blackford Analysis, commented;

“The potential to save radiologist time is exciting. Even small amounts of radiologist time are valuable, and if widely implemented the savings from our technology could amount to millions per year. We already have concrete interest in further development from several significant industry players.”

“And there is similar potential in many other fields where large datasets require fast analysis. Blackford Analysis has evolved the medical software from an innovation that was very valuable for astronomy, but now we are able to develop its commercial potential in other fields where large datasets require fast analysis.”

“It’s been an exciting journey to get to this stage but we’re very pleased to secure this cash which will allow us to really start penetrating medical imaging and other markets. It is a great achievement to be raising money in this climate but I think the product shows real value in shortening the process time and also improving image and information quality.”

“We have attracted the interest of American angel investors and together with some other private cash and the Scottish Enterprise Seed Fund, we are now on our feet.”

In addition to securing Scottish Enterprise Seed Fund investment, the company has had a range of support from Scottish Enterprise.  Prior to the spin-out company forming, the research idea was assisted through Scottish Enterprise’s Proof of Concept Programme, helping to turn the initial research idea into a commercial reality.  More recently, Scottish Enterprise’s High Growth Startup Unit has provided intensive business development support, accelerating and attracting investment and funding in the form of a SMART award. The original research was sponsored by STFC, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, who also provided further funds through a Follow On Fund award.

The company has also appointed Conrad Chin, formerly Product Director of successful medical imaging start-up Voxar, as its chairman, MacRoberts LLP as its legal advisers and Johnston Carmichael as its business advisers.

Dr Panter continued;

“We’ve been working with a team of people and finding the right business advisers was very important to us so we went to pitch and Johnston Carmichael won the work hands down.”

Shaun Millican, partner at the Johnston Carmichael Edinburgh office commented;

“Helping start up technology businesses get on their feet is a real pleasure, particularly in the current business environment.  Blackford Analysis has to be credited for their hard work and tenacity to develop something of real commercial value for a large and lucrative market.”

Blackford Analysis uses the MOPED algorithm, originally invented by Professor Alan Heavens of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh.   Heavens and Panter’s work created a thousand-times increase in speed for the processing of galaxy spectra, and was used to determine the star formation history of the Universe.

The researchers could see that the capabilities of the algorithm were not limited to astronomy, and set about looking for other areas where the technology could bring significant advantages. Through speaking with medical professionals, the researchers saw the opportunity to develop the technology to provide quick and reliable images.

The new technology lines up images immediately, reducing the processing time and shaving minutes off the traditional processes.

Dr Panter explains;

“As datasets become larger, the cost of the hardware resources required to tackle them rocket and the case for MOPED is even more compelling.  The powerful algorithm vastly reduces that hardware cost, and the patented technology means that no other company in the world can do what Blackford Analysis can, solving emerging issues in an elegant and resourceful manner.”

A working demo of the product will be shown to potential customers at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) conference in November this year. RSNA is the biggest medical imaging event in the world, with over 60,000 delegates.

Blackford Analysis employs 3 permanent members of staff and 4 Directors and is based at offices at The Royal Observatory on Blackford Hill.

Ben Panter, CEO, said

“Being accepted onto the BizSpark program is a fantastic step for us, giving us access to cutting edge software with which to build our product and ensure industry best-practice is carried out. We are very grateful to Informatics Ventures for accepting us onto the scheme”.

BizSpark provides fast, easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools and production licenses of server products; professional technical support from Microsoft; and connections to a global community of business experts who can help guide companies through the hurdles of growing their business.

Blackford Analysis seeks a software engineer to join the team developing our first product, a solution that improves radiologist throughput by 10%, with the potential to save $1.2bn in the USA alone.

We’re looking for someone who lives and breathes programming, and has a deep and varied knowledge of multiple platforms, languages and concepts. The essential skills are an excellent grounding in C/C++ and windows, but experience of .net, java and CUDA would also be helpful. Most of all we need you to understand the customer’s needs, and be able to write software that addresses them.

The successful candidate will be a self-starter who has worked in teams before – perhaps someone who has taken an active part in a big OSS project, or has provided solutions to industry. The company is incorporated, and we hope to begin day to day operations within a month. We’d be looking at a start date that is as soon as possible after that, and paying a salary on the level of a good graduate job, enhanced by stock options.

If you’re interested in applying, please contact Ben Panter, using our Contact Form with a brief overview of your experience and a short description of some coding projects you’ve worked in where you feel you made the difference. Initial informal discussions will be via telephone, more formal interviews to follow. We look forward to talking to you!

MOPED’s particular ability when solving such problems is that it speeds up the step that determines how well a given combination of parameters recreates the image. After the initial compression, the time taken for each combination changes from being set by the number of pixels to being set by the number of parameters. If 10 parameters were to be determined by an image taken by a modern digital camera with 12 million pixels, the calculation would be more than one million times faster. This means that problems that were too slow become possible, often solvable in real-time. As datasets become larger, and the cost of the hardware resources required to tackle them rocket, the case for MOPED is even more compelling: the powerful algorithm vastly reduces that hardware cost. This patented technology means that no other company in the world can do what Blackford Analysis can, solving emerging issues in such an elegant and resource efficient manner.

The MIT Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP) is an intensive, one-week program teaching participants from around the world how to identify and evaluate opportunities for new technology ventures.

MIT E-Center faculty members guide participants through the venture process, explore the differences between the venture creation process in various countries, and explain how technical assistance from universities can be leveraged to help create new companies.

EDP targets aspiring entrepreneurs, business-minded technologists, corporate venture officials, and university and regional development leaders. During the program, these participants hone their customer focus and entrepreneurial skills, and learn how to create a more favorable climate for innovation and entrepreneurship within their organizations.

The companies attending from Informatics Ventures were Intimate Sessions, Arnlea, Blackford Analysis, Axiope, Proinnovate, I4H, Inquisitive Systems, Agenor, Factonomy, Satsis, NGenTec and Biopta.

Carole McCarthy, director of innovation and commercialisation at Scottish Enterprise, said: “Commercialisation in technology businesses, as well as nurturing the best of Scotland’s talent in the sector, is key to the nation’s economic growth. The EDP programme at MIT is a great way for them to experience first-hand the global marketplace.”

Ben Panter, winner of the 2009 THALES Technology Prize

http://www.scottishtechnologyprize.com/previous-winners/

The winning plan was developed during a Scottish Enterprise-funded ‘Proof of Concept’ contract, which brought together physicists, astronomers, and medics from the University’s Brain Imaging Centre at the Western General hospital.

The team, led by astronomer Prof. Alan Heavens, has proved the concept that fast processing techniques developed in astronomy can greatly improve the speed and quality of MRI imaging. The success in the competition was largely down to the dedication of the two young researchers and entrepreneurs on the project, Dr. Ben Panter and Dr. Rob Tweedie.

They were supported by Edinburgh Research and Innovation (ERI), the Scottish Enterprise Outcome manager, Keith McKellar and mentors from the RCUK competition itself. Ben now plans to put the prize money towards a spin-out company, Blackford Analysis, which will look to apply the technology in medical and other markets.