To achieve the main objective described in this MoU, the following specific objectives shall be accomplished:
Research Coordination
- To support MyWAVE members to develop new standards for measuring and reporting of dielectric and thermal data, capturing both the raw data and all the necessary meta-data required to replicate and interpret the experiment or to merge diverse dielectric/thermal datasets.
- To coordinate international research efforts to collect accurate dielectric and thermal data relevant to the topic of thermal-based EM technologies.
- To support the MyWAVE community to investigate the physiological changes that occur when cells reach the thermal threshold (i.e., at the instance of cell death) and how this impacts dielectric and thermal properties of the cell.
- To facilitate and promote the quality assessment (QA) of thermal-based EM technologies, to encourage clinical acceptance of EM therapeutic technologies.
- To evaluate the accuracy of treatment planning (TP) for thermal-based EM technologies in terms of the distributions of absorbed energy and temperature, based on advanced knowledge of the dielectric and thermal properties of biological tissues.
- To analyse tools and techniques that are being used for planning and guiding HT treatments in other modalities such as Ultrasound. This will facilitate cross-fertilization of ideas from different fields, thus increasing the efficacy of EM technologies.
- To support MyWAVE members to develop new thermal-based EM medical applications, treatment protocols, TP, and treatment monitoring in Europe, based on improved knowledge of the dielectric and thermal properties of healthy and diseased tissue.
- To support MyWAVE members to develop practical guidelines for EM device translation and commercialisation.
- To support commercial development of existing and innovative thermal-based EM medical devices. Case studies where the commercialisation process of the technology was compromised due to limited information will be reviewed and used as a learning experience.
- To support MyWAVE members to develop an understanding of the impact of local perfusion on temperature distribution and how this changes as a function of tissue temperature, to support TP protocols.
