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I am developing a needle-based Optical Coherence Tomography system for real-time tissue imaging.
The idea is to place a small side-viewing OCT probe inside a needle so that tissue can be imaged while the needle is moving through it. My main application is prostate biopsy. At the moment, doctors mainly rely on MRI and ultrasound to guide the needle, but these methods do not provide microscopic information from the tissue directly in front of the needle.
I have already built a large part of the system during my PhD. I have worked on the OCT setup, the needle probe, the FPGA processing hardware, and the reconstruction pipeline. I also have preliminary results from phantoms and biological tissue. The project is therefore no longer at the idea stage. The next important step is to integrate the parts more fully and validate the system on prostate tissue, ideally with histopathology as a reference. The existing work already includes the optical platform and a hardware-oriented OCT processing chain.
My current PhD scholarship finishes at the end of September 2026. I am looking for bridge funding that would allow me to continue working on the project for another year instead of stopping at this stage.
The main goal for the next year is to turn the current experimental setup into a more complete needle-OCT platform and test whether it can provide useful information for prostate tissue characterization.
The first step will be to improve the optical setup and the side-viewing needle probe, especially signal stability, coupling, and repeatability.
The second step will be to finish the real-time processing chain. I have already implemented the main OCT processing stages in FPGA hardware, including background removal, k-linearization, windowing, Fourier reconstruction, magnitude calculation, and logarithmic processing.
The third step will be biological testing. I want to acquire repeatable OCT data from prostate tissue and compare the images and signals with histopathology wherever possible.
I will first focus on simple and understandable features such as intensity, attenuation, texture, and structural changes. If enough labeled data become available, I will also test lightweight AI methods for tissue classification.
My aim is not to build a final clinical device in one year. The aim is to reach a strong experimental validation point and understand what information the system can reliably provide.
I am asking for up to $25,000 for approximately 12 months.
The main purpose of the funding is to give me enough time to continue working on the project after my PhD scholarship ends.
Part of the money would support my research time. The rest would be used for practical project costs such as optical components, modification and fabrication of the needle probe, electronics, tissue experiments, small laboratory expenses, data analysis, and research travel when needed.
Most of the expensive infrastructure already exists. I am not trying to start a new laboratory or buy a complete commercial OCT system.
What I mainly need is enough support to keep the project moving and reach the next experimental milestone.
I am Ali Mokhtari, a PhD researcher at the University of Verona.
My background is in computer engineering, digital hardware, FPGA design, and embedded systems. During my current PhD I moved into OCT and biomedical imaging and have been combining these areas.
I have designed and tested FPGA-based OCT processing hardware, worked on the optical setup and needle probe, and performed experiments using both phantoms and biological tissue.
The FPGA system has already been used for real-time OCT reconstruction. In my current work, the hardware reconstruction is being compared with a software reference to understand the trade-offs between speed and image quality. The system preserves the main structural features of the OCT signal while running on resource-limited FPGA hardware.
The project is being carried out in an academic research environment, with access to expertise in robotics, medical imaging, optics, and clinical research.
The funding would be administered by the University of Verona and used to support the continuation of the Needle-OCT project, including my research activity, experimental work, components, and validation costs.
The main technical risk is that OCT may not provide enough contrast to reliably distinguish different prostate tissue types.
Another risk is that matching OCT measurements with histopathology may be more difficult than expected because of tissue deformation, registration errors, and limited sample numbers.
The probe may also need more optical optimization before it gives sufficiently stable results in real tissue.
If these problems happen, the project would still produce useful results. I would still have a tested needle-OCT platform, a real-time FPGA reconstruction system, experimental tissue data, and a clearer understanding of the limitations of OCT for this application.
For me, the biggest immediate risk is actually continuity. If I cannot find bridge funding after my current scholarship ends, I will have much less time available for the experimental work. That could slow down or interrupt the project exactly when it is moving from engineering development toward biological validation.
So far I have developed the project using my PhD funding, existing university equipment, and research resources already available to the group.
I have not received any dedicated external grant, private donation, or philanthropic funding for the Needle-OCT project during the last 12 months.