Sensing the brain with light and sound and saving lives

 

 

Abstract
The brain is the most important organ, is very sensitive to changes in the supply of nutrients via the blood stream, and is the most difficult to monitor and treat.

At Ornim Medical, we developed a novel, non-invasive technology, that enables to monitor blood flow and oxygen saturation in the brain. This is the only non-invasive technology available today, that is capable of monitoring both modalities simultaneously. Ornim's monitors are currently being used in intensive care units and operating rooms around the world, to monitor patients in coma or under general anesthesia.

I will describe the technology and the road from an idea to a commercial monitor, with FDA clearance, that has already been used to monitor hundreds of patients, and in some cases saved lives.

 

Biography
Dr. Michal Balberg, ed a Ph.D. in Neural Computation from the Hebrew University, and her research in Applied Physics focused on electro-holographic systems for parallel computation. As a Beckman Fellow at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Balberg investigated holographic microscopy in tissue and micro-fluidic devices for molecular sensing.

 

In 2004 Dr. Balberg founded Ornim Medical, a medical device company that develops a non-invasive brain monitor based on the acousto-optic effect, that is now a commercial product with FDA clearance. Michal is an inventor of 20 world-wide patents and patent applications, and authors many scientific articles in peer reviewed journals in the field of optics, biomedical engineering and physics. Her current research interests include acousto optic sensing and functional brain imaging.