The Catalan Government's agency AGAUR has awarded Seed funds for the MiWEndo project, a project based on microwave sensors that provide real-time images in endoscopic explorations and interventions.

It is to be carried out by Òscar Cámara as principal investigator and Marta Guardiola, as junior researcher, both attached to the PhySense (Sensing in Physiology and Biomedicine),  research group at the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF).

This project is under a collaboration agreement with Gloria Fernández, coordinator of the Digestive Endoscopy Unit at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, with the participation of members of the Simbiosys research group directed by Miguel Ángel González Ballester, ICREA lecturer, as well as members of AntennaLAB at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

MiWEndo is to develop a system of microwave image generation for clinical endoscopic applications. The device consists of an endoscopy probe that has various microwave sensors or antennas capable of forming an image depending on the electrical properties of the tissues in which the device is found.

The main advantage of microwaves is their ability to penetrate opaque materials, providing a new mechanism of contrast that gives complementary information to the imaging technologies available today. 

The AGAUR Seed programme is part of the Knowledge Industry Programme which aims to create new science-based companies. This proposal is structured according to three distinct stages, depending on the stage each business project is at:  Seed, Product and Market.

Within the project, AGAUR grants funding to innovative projects that are in their initial stages of technological maturity, in order to improve in knowledge, and provide sufficient potential so that they can join the productive sector. In addition, the Seed funds include a training programme, organized by the American University of California, Berkeley, whose main goal is to strengthen the process of teamwork among the innovative projects selected.

UPF participated in the pilot test of the programme, carried out between the months of March and July 2014, with six projects related to the fields of Information and Communication Technologies and Biology. Each proposal received a grant of 25,000 euros to develop an idea of knowledge transfer that was at the Seed or initial stage.