European researchers who created an ultra-fast, extremely high-resolution video camera have enabled dozens of medical applications, including one scenario that can record ‘thought’ processes travelling along neurons.
A.R. | 14 october 2009
The Megaframe project scored a staggering number of breakthroughs to create the world’s first 1024 pixel, photon-resolution, million-frame-per-second CMOS camera that puts Europe firmly in the lead for ultra-high speed video cameras. Their work has pushed the boundaries of CMOS (a type of semiconductor) miniaturization and sophistication. But it is in the application of their technology that the most stunning impacts of the Megaframe project will be seen, particularly in medical applications.
That is because the camera can detect a single photon at a million times a second, and so it can record molecular processes in unprecedented detail. Scientists have developed extremely ingenious ways to infer or deduce what is happening at the molecular level, and Megaframe could make that process even more detailed.
Megaframe could have a significant impact on any medical science that uses visible light emissive scanning technologies. Other applications currently under exploration by Megaframe include intracellular DNA sequencing and proteomics, two huge areas for drug discovery, as well as basic scientific research for gene sequencing and protein-folding.
