[Licensing negotiation in progress]
[Invitation for Expression of Interest- Deadline: 5 March 2021]
We are inviting expressions of interest (EoI) for commercializing “System and Method for Patient Privacy Protection in Medical Images” technology. The innovation is developed by Professor Weitian CHEN, Professor of the Department of Imaging and Interventional Radiology of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK Reference: 17/MED/797).
The Technology
Data sharing has been promoted as an important step in medical imaging studies. This fact has led to the creation of large-scale online medical image databases. However, in addition to personally identifying information (PII) commonly found in metadata of medical images, superficial anatomical features of patient’s face contained in 3D medical images posed a unique challenge to medical privacy and placed a serious obstacle for data sharing in large-scale collaborative efforts. Therefore, it’s crucial to have in place measures to share the 3D brain MR images in compliance with medical privacy regulation.
Approaches employed to date usually required: (1) using an image registration method to pre-align the medical images with a standard template image, (2) employing a training procedure to identify particular anatomical structures, or (3) using an iterative procedure to remove all non-brain voxels during de-identification.
Such approaches are useful but are computationally intensive, and often required significant manual intervention to complete the de-identification procedure. These limitations substantially complicate the process for making image data sets available to other investigators. In this invention, a fully-automated method for concealing patient identity in 3D medical images is described. The proposed method addresses the limitations in previously reported methods.
Commercialization The technology is now available for licensing on an exclusive basis. In order to fully realize the benefit of the technology, we expect substantial investment is necessary to enable further research and development. In addition to the financial commitment, the licensee is expected to have the appropriate expertise as well as plans in marketing and strategizing the end product to ensure successful transfer of the technology to the society. Previous or existing business involvement and experience in this area is a plus.
This invitation of expression of interest is without prejudice. We also stress that this invitation is not a tender, and the University is not bound to accept any offer, or to accept the highest monetary offer, as there are additional considerations (such as the widest possible benefit to the community) that we, as a public institution, will need to take into consideration.