Seeing Cancers at the Molecular Level Using Low-cost and Advanced CMOS Bioimagersa

Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is a powerful tool for the diagnosis and assessment of cancers and tumors in the clinical field due to its ability to acquire functional images to differentiate between metabolic and biological activities at the molecular level. One of key challenges for the PET imaging system is to develop the high-sensitivity, low-noise, small-sized and low-cost PET detectors. In this talk, I will discuss one unique bioimager structurer- single-photon avalanche diodes (SPAD), which is capable of detecting even a single photon, has excellent timing resolution and can be fabricated using low-cost standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processes. These features make SPAD-based imagers becoming the most promising sensor technology for PET imaging applications. The advancement in the SPAD-based bioimager will help to improve the image resolution for the PET system. As a result, cancers and tumours can be detected at a very early stage, thus significantly increasing the survival rate for the patients and reducing the medical cost.