Koning Corporation
More than 40,000 women in the U.S. die from breast cancer annually. Ruola Ning, Ph.D., Professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center Department of Imaging Sciences founded Koning in 2002 to dramatically reduce this number. Through the commercialization of a next-generation scanner for breast cancer screening, early diagnosis, and image-guided therapeutics, Koning seeks to detect tumors much earlier than those revealed by conventional mammography, when they are more easily treated.
Koning's technology platform, Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) affords accurate 3-D imaging of breast tissue with an innovative cone beam X-ray source, a detector that captures high resolution data as it circles the breast, and patented software that generates 3-D images of the tissue. In pre-clinical trials, the CBCT imaging technique reliably detected tumors between 1 and 2 mm in diameter. Conventional wisdom indicates that doing so will afford patients a greater than 90 percent chance of survival. Currently, many breast cancer patients have tumors that are incurable by the time they are large enough to be detected by current 2-D techniques. To date, mammography technology has not been successful in reliably detecting tumors smaller than 11 mm in diameter—well beyond the critical 2 mm size that marks the initiation of angiogenesis and metastasis.
The potential of the technology has been recognized by the scientific and business communities. Currently, funding for the development of CBCT has reached nearly $11 million dollars, including a $2.5 million Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institutes of Health awarded in 2005. Since 2002, a host of consultative partners from the URMC and beyond have contributed to the development of CBCT. Koning has partnered with electronics firms to build the first prototype instrument and plans to initiate clinical trials for CBCT breast imaging in early 2006.
For more information, contact Ruola Ning, Ph.D.
