UC Davis Explorer Selects UIHA America, SensL Technologies for PET Prototype

The University of California Davis-based Explorer consortium, which aims to build a revolutionary total-body positron emission tomography (PET) scanner, has announced the selection of health care provider United Imaging Healthcare America and detection system developer SensL Technologies Ltd. as industry partners to help build a prototype device.

The Explorer scanner will have more than 560,000 detector elements and be able to view all organs of the body simultaneously, with a 40-fold increase in effective signal over current technology. These advances would both improve image quality and reduce radiation exposure to patients over conventional PET scanners, which can only image a small segment of the body at a time.

“A system with this detection sensitivity will dramatically improve our ability to study cancer and other diseases as well as advance diagnostic capabilities in our industry,” said Simon Cherry, lead researcher and professor in the UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering.

The Explorer consortium selected United Imaging Healthcare America to build the first prototype total-body PET scanner after an extensive review of potential commercial partners.

“We are very proud to be selected to be part of the Explorer consortium and provide the system design support required to deliver a system capable of outstanding performance,” said Hongdi Li, CEO of UIH America.

The detector technology in the scanner will incorporate the latest generation solid-state silicon photomultiplier light sensors, instead of the vacuum-based photomultiplier tubes used in conventional PET scanners.

“The use of silicon photomultiplier technology is rapidly replacing older photomultiplier tube technologies and provides improved resolution for a system of this scale,” said Bryan Campbell, CEO of SensL, which will supply the detectors.

“We believe we have gathered leaders in the medical imaging field to quickly and cost-effectively bring this technology to reality in an exciting and innovative way,” said Ramsey Badawi, professor of radiology at UC Davis and co-leader of the project.