Recent advances in medical technologies are arousing a plethora of proposals for hybrid or multimodal methods combining ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, ultrasound and image processing tools that collectively hold the potential to support the digital transformation of healthcare systems. Their application to critical sites like the lungs may make a major impact on outstanding problems like carcinoma, genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis or infectious conditions like viral or microbial pneumonia, which clearly await innovative developments. However, in place of the path to clinical uptake, too many new ideas, no matter how good they are, take the direction of a so-called “valley of death”. In most cases, the main reason for such a failure is as trivial as a lack of adequate tools for performance assessment, the current paradigm centered on lab animals being too unsustainable especially for early day-to-day work. In this context, anatomical phantoms may really play a strategic role. However, current solutions of anatomical phantoms made of plain polymers or natural stocks are too primitive to support the development of multimodal and hybrid technologies, and this is particularly true in such a complex organ as the lungs.

This project arises from a growing demand for progress in the diagnosis and treatment of lung diseases, including those associated to COVID-19. It aims to develop a lung phantom for testing new diagnostic or therapeutic approaches as well as clinical protocols of interest in carcinoma and pneumonia. Its scope is a new platform to replicate the interactions between the human lungs and all desired physical agents, such as light, ultrasound and X-rays, and to display dosimetric sensitivity to all desired physical treatments, such as photo and radiation therapies.

We will synthesize the underlying materials based on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) by combining bottom-up and top-down methods, in order to achieve bio-inspired hierarchical architectures that may resemble the ultrastructure of human lungs and accommodate the proper variety of contrast agents and dosimetric reporters, and for casting into lung-like sponges reconstructed by the help of additive manufacturing. We will assess their tissue-like and radiation-response properties in a variety of preclinical and clinical conditions, and we will test their use in real cases of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures that are under investigation within concomitant initiatives developed on a national or international scale, in order to create synergistic opportunities.

The partnership of ALPHA is a functional team of experts in medical physics, materials science, biophotonics and clinical research on a broad pool of diagnostic and therapeutic methods, and will provide an ideal combination of background knowledge, technical know-how, case scenarios and outreach potential for the greatest scientific and socioeconomic impact.

Project 2022HHZWRS funded under the PRIN 2022 call related to the Ministerial Decree No. 104 dated 02/02/2022, within the framework of the national recovery and resilience plan, Mission 4 – Component 2. From Research to Business – Investment 1.1 Fund for the national research orogramme (PNR) and projects of significant national interest (PRIN), funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU – CUP D53D23013540006..