The ESOTRAC consortium developed an 360º, 50 Hz frame rate, distal scanning capsule optoacoustic endoscope which holds the great translational potential for human GI tract imaging for the the early detection of esophageal cancer. Read in Photoacoustics https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213597922000052    

ESOTRAC researchers achieve an unprecedented depths of focus for optoacoustic microscopy while retaining high lateral resolution matching Bessel illumination with a broadband axicon transducer developed by partner SONAXIS. Read the full paper in Advanced Photonics Research https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adpr.202100249

After 5 intensive years within an amazing consortium, we close the project with a great invetion at hand. Many thanks to all the partners! This success would not have been possible without you. This might rather be the beginning than the end!   We managed to twist a huge benchtop technology into a tiny endoscopic hybrid optoacoustic OCT capsule and a portable rack system that was validated on…

In ESOTRAC we installed our new hybrid OCT optoacoustic endoscope for the early detection of esophagealcancer at the clinic of the University of Cambridge in the lab of Rebecca Fitzgerald and measured esophageal resections from patients. Now we are excited to analyze the results!

A new study by Helmholtz Zentrum München in collaboration with transducer manufacturer SONAXIS shows that an ESOTRAC designed ultra broadband axicon ultrasound transducer has a superior performance over the standard spherical transducer for optoacoustic endoscopy! Results are published in Nature Scientific Reports.    

As ESOTRAC extends into 2021, there were many topics on our agenda to discuss at our 7th Consortium Meeting on 20th October – this time all virtual. Many thanks also to our external guests from Clinical Engineering at Cambridge University Hospitals and our ethics advisor Alan Lamont for participating. We highly value your contributions! And as it can be seen on the photo, after intense discussions…

The article „Capsule optoacoustic endoscopy for esophageal imaging“ is among the top downloaded, most read articles in Journal of Biophotonics! It was already chosen as the Journal cover before! Congratulations to the authors and the team. This paper elaborates an optoacoustic endoscope and thus contributes an important step to the bi-modal endoscope combining optoacoustics with OCT that we…

The storm Ciara — or Sabine — tore through parts of Europe, causing chaotic traffic conditions. Nevertheless, the ESOTRAC consortium found their way to Paris to gather for the 6th consortium meeting, organized by partner SONAXIS on February 10 to 11, 2020. Although a few of us got stuck in their home towns and only reached Paris via the internet to attend the meeting, it was a very successful…

…said EC project officer Eddy Corthals at the end of our second review meeting of ESOTRAC, held on November 26th in Munich including a live demo of our MSOT-OCT hybrid endoscope prototype. We, as a consortium, are happy that our strong efforts and the progress we made were honored by the officer and the two reviewers, Anke Lohmann and Gijs van Soest. The “enthusiastic people” working for ESOTRAC…

HMGU presented ESOTRAC at the “Nordic-Bavarian Partnering Workshop: Research and Innovation for Health, Hospitals and Integrated Care” co-hosted by the Bavarian Research Alliance and the Innovation Centre Denmark on 7th November in Munich. The event focused on tailored networking and matchmaking of Bavarian scientists and small and medium sized enterprises with potential project partners from the…

ESOTRAC took part in the EC Workshop “Smart Bioelectronic and Wearable Systems“ from 22. - 23. October 2019 in Brussels. Market leaders, innovators, researchers, professional and user organizations discussed about technology and market challenges and opportunities in addressing health, ageing, agri-food, security, environment & climate change. The central aims and recent developments within…

ESOTRAC scientists have built a novel capsule optoacoustic endoscopy (COE) system which provides high‐quality 360‐degree images of the entire lumen, specifically designed for typical dimensions of human esophagus, highlighted on the recent cover of the Journal of Biophotonics. The probe resolved vascular structure and different layers of the esophageal wall down to a depth of 2 mm. These results…

During a meeting in Munich in June partners from STATICE, SONAXIS, the Medical University of Vienna, and the Helmholtz Zentrum München worked together to advance the opto-mechanical design of the esophageal endoscope that is being developed within ESOTRAC. At the end of the day, great achievements were reached in miniaturization of the capsule, taking clinical application and optical performance…

ESOTRAC partners from the University of Cambridge, the Helmholtz Zentrum München, the Medical University of Vienna, and RayFos Ltd. gathered in the facilities of the Cambridge University Hospital in May to implement and integrate the modalities of MSOT and OCT and ran first scans on human esophageal resection samples. This experiment allowed not only for solving technical challenges of system…

Joe McEntee wrote a great article about our approaches and goals in ESOTRAC based on an interview with Prof. Vasilis Ntziachristos which appeared in the June 2019 Physics World Focus on Optics & Photonics under the headline "A light at the end of the tunnel". The article also investigates early detection of esophageal cancer with near-infrared fluorescence molecular endoscopy (NIR-FME) as…

ESOTRAC invited members of the EU Project MIB to a joint working dinner on May 15, 2019 in Copenhagen. Under the headline „ESOTRAC meets MIB: fostering collaborations“ participants of both projects met in a charming environment and engaged into deep technical and professional discussions. After the dinner the group took a long walk through the ancient city center of Copenhagen and continued…

On May 15, 2019 the ESOTRAC partners gathered for the 5th consortium meeting at Scandic Copenhagen, hosted by the Technical University of Denmark. This meeting was devoted to technical discussions and decisions on solutions. In the past months, we have achieved great progress in many critical steps on system integration and miniaturization. With a clear vision for the upcoming period, we scheduled…

ESOTRAC was featured in several communication activities addressing the general public, and, in particular, the young generation of future scientists and engineers. Young people are an ideal hub to spread information about the project, being deeply engaged in social networks, online and offline. They will also pass on the knowledge they have gained to parents and grandparents, themselves being…

See what ESOTRAC is all about in our promotional video „Future of Biomedical Imaging: ESOTRAC“ on YouTube.

The 4th consortium meeting of ESOTRAC took place from January 10-11, 2019 at Hotel & Palais Strudlhof in Vienna, hosted by the Medical University of Vienna. Organized in six topical sessions, supported by two of our advisory board members the ESOTRAC partners discussed recent technical advancements and challenges and defined a roadmap for the second half of the project duration.

The Technical University of Denmark hosted the 3rd consortium meeting from July 2-3, 2018 @ the Park Inn by Radisson in Kopenhagen.  Joined by one of the advisory board members, ESOTRAC partners discussed the fine-tuning of the first prototype which is expected by the end of the year.

ESOTRAC researchers hosted a well-attended special session on “Early detection of esophageal cancer with advances in photonic imaging” on March 22nd 2018 during this year’s EMIM conference. Vasilis Ntziachristos, coordinator of ESOTRAC, Wolfgang Drexler, ESOTRAC’s OCT specialist and Wouter Nagengast, a long-standing clinical collaborator and expert in esophageal cancer took the audience through a…

The ESOTRAC consortium gathered for their first consortium meeting at Hotel Europa, Munich from July 20-21, 2017. All partners reported on the proceedings of their respective work packages and discussed the next steps in the project. After two intense, but very productive days, the partners agreed on a design that suits both the clinical needs and technical demands.

The website of the ESOTRAC project was started on 28th of April, 2017.

The ESOTRAC kick off Meeting took place on Jan 19th and 20th, 2017 at Hotel "Bayerischer Hof" in Freising, Germany. The partners had intense, fruitful discussions regarding the project proceedings and the timeline and decided on the most important actions to be taken within the first 6 months. Further discussions on specific WP tasks occurred in smaller subgroups.

ESOTRAC project was funded by Horizon2020. The aim of this project is to develop novel photonic components (light sources, optical/optoacoustic scopes) and to innovate novel medical system designs. Then, ESOTRAC performs pilot studies to investigate the functionality of the new endoscope and deliver a novel imaging-feature portfolio offering improved and earlier diagnosis.