The 2nd LUCA Consortium Meeting took place at ICFO - in Barcelona, where LUCA members gathered to discuss on the project’s progress. Amongst the different issues discussed, a progress overview was given by each of the work package leaders, including updates on the development of laser components as well as timing systems (T. Durduran- A. Tosi - D. Contini), the current state of communications between ultrasound and optical devices (S. de Fraguier), the design of the Optical-Ultrasound multi-modal probe (B. Rosinski), the real-time multi-modal data analysis (S. Wojtkiewicz), the novel LUCA demonstrator and the integration of subsystems (U. Weigel) as well as the characterisation of LUCA technologies in laboratory settings (A. Dalla Mora) and clinical protocols elaboration, ethical approvals and demonstrator testing in real-settings for healthy thyroid tissue, benign and malign thyroid nodules in patients (M. Mora). Finally a general view of the dissemination and communication actions regarding the project were presented (P. Zolda) as well as the development a strategy for exploiting results (S. Royo).
Dr. M. Puig, member of the MAB, gave an in-depth talk on the state of thyroid disorders in Europe and the expected pathway research should move into for this particular field, emphasizing the EU’s awareness that thyroid research is of uttermost importance for Europe. Finally, strategies for exploiting the results were presented to establish clear procedures on what the market and business models could be once the project ends.
