Fraunhofer Institute for Early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases
Up to now, providing an early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases is difficult or not even possible at all. This challenge was addressed within the project “Fiber optical cell collector for the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, FOCCS”. A new optical method for an early diagnosis of lifestyle diseases was developed from February to December 2015. During the project, scientists and technicians of the University of Potsdam, the GILUPI GmbH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP modified the existing cell collector from GILUPI to work with fiber optical detection. Thus, the basis for an innovative medical device was provided.
The newly developed cell collector is supposed to detect certain, very rare target cells indicating cardiovascular diseases in the blood circuit. Within the project, the Fraunhofer IAP and GILUPI modified the composition and functionalization of optical fibers to match the requirements of the new application. In combination with fiber optical detection, which is a core expertise of the working groups Physical Chemistry and innoFSPEC of the University of Potsdam, an efficient analysis of the target cells was accomplished. By this means, cardiovascular diseases are supposed to be detected long before the first heart attack.
The project covered in this report was financially supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy of the state of Brandenburg and the EU. The author of this publication is accountable for its content.