UK's second Digital Autopsy facility opens in Bradford, offering non-invasive post-mortem examinations.
State-Of-The-Art Digital Autopsy Facility opens in Bradford on May 30th 2014.
You can find some of the photos here on FACEBOOK
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Friday, 6 June 2014
Thursday, 7 November 2013
iGene featured in the news video during the 9th WIEF 2013 in London.
The World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) was held in London on Tuesday, 29th October 2013. Where more than 1,500
delegates from 85 countries were gathered for the gigantic opportunities in exploring businesses and
investments, and harmonizing global opportunities.
On the first day of this three days event, iGene® Sdn. Bhd. launched the world's first network of Digital Autopsy centres in United Kingdom. Where it is a network of 18 state-of-the-art Digital Autopsy facilities for the United Kingdom, the first of its kind in the world.
This video is from the original video produced by WIEF Foundation TV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGiMGX0Lvf8&feature=youtu.be during the second day of the 9th WIEF 2013. Where Mr. Matt Chandran and iGene's representative can be seen at the end of the video (minutes 3:19 to 3:23).
This second video is from TV3 News on 30th of October 2013 http://www.tv3.com.my/beritatv3/tajuk_utama/WIEF_Jadi_Platform_Penting_Bagi_Dunia_Islam.html.
Where Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak launched the iGene
Digital Autopsy Facility in United Kingdom during the event. (minutes
2:15 to 2:24).
I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts- Bill Gates.
On the first day of this three days event, iGene® Sdn. Bhd. launched the world's first network of Digital Autopsy centres in United Kingdom. Where it is a network of 18 state-of-the-art Digital Autopsy facilities for the United Kingdom, the first of its kind in the world.
I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts- Bill Gates.
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
9th WIEF - iGene® to launch Digital Autopsy Facility (DAF) in the United Kingdom
9th World Islamic Economic Forum 2013.
Changing World, New Relationships
iGene® to launch Digital Autopsy Facility (DAF) in the United Kingdom
LONDON, United Kingdom (Tue Oct 29, 2013) - The World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) is now
back. After the successful story in Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Kuwait and
Pakistan this international event will now be held in London; for the first time this event will be held outside
of a Muslim country. The forthcoming 9th WIEF, an annual event, with its theme “Changing World, New
Relationships" encapsulates the emergence of diversified new economic
linkages between nations across borders, religions and cultures in a fast
growing economic world.
The WIEF is organized by the World
Islamic Economic Forum Foundation, a Kuala Lumpur based, non-for-profit
organization under the Malaysian government. Key areas of focus for the
upcoming forum in London include Islamic banking and finance, technology, infrastructure
development, health, exports, education and youth. The Forum aims to deliver
tangible investment. During last year’s 8th WIEF, deals worth an estimated RM28
billion equivalent to £5.8billion, were struck (London and Partners, 03 July
2013).
The WIEF is the connecting bridge
for business networking between transnational companies and organization around
the globe generally and between the Muslim and non-Muslim world specifically.
This event will open gigantic opportunities for exploring businesses and
investments, and harmonizing global opportunities among more than 1,500
delegates from 85 countries.
Technology,
being one of the main key areas of WIEF, will get its limelight with the launch
of an eye opening and innovative technology developed by a Malaysian company.
With financial backing from Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM), a driving force for
the Malaysian government towards establishing ‘innovation economy’, iGene® Sdn.
Bhd. (an INFOVALLEY® Group of Company)
will launch its Digital Autopsy Technology on the first day of the event under
its subsidiary iGene® London Limited. It is with great hope that the innovative
approach of iGene® will jostle up other potential Malaysian company to join the
bandwagon towards opening new gateway for international benchmarking.
Digital
Autopsy a term coined by INFOVALLEY®, relates to conducting post-mortems
digitally without mutilating the deceased. The innovative approach of this
company provides complete forensic medicine and forensic science solution from
the scene of crime till the production of a digitized multimedia post-mortem
report which can be used in the court of law. The in-house developed innovative
technology applies specific algorithms for 3D rendering to visualize the
deceased in establishing the cause and manner of death. The technology is not
just Diagnostic Imaging but is a complete comprehensive solution in forensic
investigation.
In the company’s interest to honour
the dead; this technology will be pushed as the primary manner to establish
cause of death. With no or minimum invasion, this solution has
led much interest of the religious bodies. The Fatwa Committee National Council of Islamic
Religious Affairs Malaysia has recognized Digital Autopsy System as a good
way to handle a dead body for autopsy and forensic investigation purposes.
Similar response has also been received from religious bodies from other
countries. Involvement of iGene® with its impactful technology in this event
will leave a good impression to the investors about Malaysian’s companies while
creating a new breakthrough for Muslim world on digital autopsy.
United Kingdom (UK) was chosen because
of its acceptance of this frontier technology as well as its existing advanced
medical arena. UK is an attractive springboard for companies who want
to grow their global business. It provides a unique gateway of international
connections, and is a recognized leader in the fields of creativity and
innovation and is the sixth largest economy in the world. Supported by the Ministry of Justice,
new guidelines have been introduced to embrace digital autopsies. iGene® has
also been fortunate enough to get the backing of Chief Coroner’s Office under the Home
Ministry of United Kingdom, Royal College of Radiologists and Royal College
Pathologists. iGene Sdn. Bhd. under its subsidiary, iGene® London Limited is
currently building Digital Autopsy Facilities (DAFs) in the UK in stages, which
will consisting of four full scaled Digital Autopsy Facilities (DAFs) and 14
Digital Autopsy Scanning Centers (DAsc). These four DAFs will be connected to a
centralized data centre which will function as the digital repository for
archiving. The first unit at Sheffield Medico-Legal is anticipated to be ready
in time for the launch during this 9th WIEF. iGene®’s investment is estimated to be up to £10 million which will also
create around 60 jobs in the first three years.
iGene® subsequently
plans to penetrate into the United State and the Middle East markets. Parallel
with the forum’s theme, to change the world by opening and grasping new
relationship with all the industry players regardless of their geographical borders, religions and cultures.
iGene® as well
as others industry players are anticipated to makes the 9th WIEF as
a stepping stone to navigate and pervade into wider business
opportunities.
Thursday, 22 August 2013
Digital Autopsy and iGene highlighted in Reuters.
| Infovalley Group Chief Executive Mathavan Chandran poses at his office in Kuala Lumpur, June 24, 2013. |
By Jeremy Wagstaff
SINGAPORE |
He believes his so-called digital autopsy could
largely displace the centuries-old traditional knife-bound one, speeding
up investigations, reducing the stress on grieving families and placating religious sensibilities.
He is confident
there's money in what he calls his Autopsy as a Service, and hopes to
launch the first of at least 18 digital autopsy facilities in Britain in
October, working closely with local authorities.
Around 70 million people die each year, says
Chandran, and around a tenth of those deaths are medico-legal cases that
require an autopsy. "That's a huge number, so we're of the view that
this is a major line of services that is shaping up around the world,"
he said in an interview.
The poor common perception of autopsies has
undermined their commercial appeal. "Unfortunately, because the process
of the post-mortem is seen as gruesome, one tends to ignore that," says
Chandran.
Humans have been cutting each other open for at
least 3,000 years to learn more about death, but the autopsy has never
been widely embraced outside TV crime dramas. Surgeons in 18th century
Britain, for example, robbed graves for corpses to dissect, some even
commissioning murders when supplies dried up.
By the 1950s, the autopsy was at its zenith,
with pathologists performing post-mortems on more than 60 percent of
those who died in the United States and Europe - helping uncover more
than 80 major, and perhaps thousands of minor, medical conditions.
But the number of autopsies has fallen steadily:
Today, fewer than 20 percent of deaths in Britain are followed by
autopsy, and most of these are ordered by coroners in cases where the
cause of death is unclear or disputed.
The fall has been blamed on a growing distaste
for a procedure regarded by some as crude and outdated - a feeling
fanned by the public discovery in Britain in 1999 that medical
institutions had been retaining organs and tissue after post-mortems for
decades.
| Digital Autopsy forensic application, a three-dimensional capabilities to view and dissect inside and outside of the digital body in high definition visuals, on a multi touch screen representing a digital mortuary table at the INFOVALLEY office in Kuala Lumpur June 5, 2013. |
DIGITAL MAKEOVER
Chandran, 45, wants to change all this by simply connecting his company iGene's 3D imaging software
to any standard medical CT or MRI scanner. An expert can then inspect
the virtual cadaver in 3D, removing layers of cloth, skin and bone with a
mouse or by gestures on a tabletop touchscreen.
The advantages, Chandran says, are considerable.
The digital evidence remains intact and can be
reviewed; experts can more easily spot and identify fracture, foreign
objects such as bullets, and the tips of knife wounds; and grieving
families can swiftly learn how their loved ones died and without having
to cut open the body.
iGene isn't the first to run a scanner over a corpse. Radiology has been used on skulls for 30 years, and Israel
first introduced the concept of a virtual autopsy in 1994. The U.S.
military started conducting CT scans of all soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004 in addition to traditional autopsies.
The results have been encouraging. Researchers
from University College London concluded that in fetuses and individuals
aged 16 and younger, a minimally invasive autopsy incorporating an MRI
scan identified the same cause of death as 90 percent of traditional
autopsies.
| A staff member carries out a CT scan on a corpse at a mortuary at Hospital Kuala Lumpur in Kuala Lumpur July 3, 2013. |
COMMERCIALISE
But iGene is, Chandran says, the first to
package the process and offer it commercially as a suite of services
that stretches from the moment of death to the delivery of a post-mortem
report.
His company provides a software
suite that uses existing medical scanners from the likes of Siemens,
General Electric, Toshiba and Philips. These form the heart of iGene's
digital autopsy facilities which the company plans to build close to UK
mortuaries. The first will open in October in the northern English city
of Sheffield.
A spokesperson for Sheffield City Council confirmed it was working with iGene on such a centre, but declined to give details. Chandran says his company will spend around $77
million to build and run the facilities and will make its money from
those cases where a coroner demands a post-mortem. About 200,000 deaths
require autopsies each year in Britain, he said.
Next of kin will be given the option of a
classical autopsy, paid for by the state, or a digital autopsy, costing
about 500 pounds ($780) and paid for by the family.
SKEPTICS
Not everyone believes the digital autopsy is
ready for prime time. Some question whether it can spot some diseases.
And even a pioneer like Guy Rutty, chief forensic pathologist at the
University of Leicester and the first to use CT images as evidence in a
criminal trial, says that while demand may be growing there are limits
to what a digital autopsy can do - particularly determining where and in
some cases when a patient died.
Chandran and his team are undeterred. They say the digital autopsy facility combines with other non-invasive diagnostic tools such as angiography and toxicology.
Pramod Bagali, chief operations officer of
iGene's parent company InfoValley, says the system is "a complementary
method, not a complete replacement" to traditional autopsies, but could
handle 70 percent of routine cases. The others could be done digitally
to start with and then a decision could be made about whether to open up
the body. "It's not replacing one flawed system with another," he says.
Crucially, iGene offers a business
model that overcomes concerns that scanning corpses is expensive, says
Chandran. He estimates his UK operation will be profitable within three
years. But that, he says, is just the start. By then, he says, he hopes
to have built at least 10 more facilities in his native Malaysia, with
interest also from the Middle East, Latin America and elsewhere in Asia.
"The potential for this is global," said Mark
Rozario, CEO of Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, a government body which this
year bought a 20 percent stake in iGene for $21.5 million.
SUPPORTERS
Chandran and his supporters see this as the
beginning of his innovation, not the end of it. The digital autopsy
facilities are nodes in a broader ecosystem Chandran likens to Apple Inc's iTunes.
Michael Thali, a Swiss academic who has been
promoting a "virtual autopsy" for more than a decade, said he tried and
failed to get the scanner makers interested in developing such services.
Now an adviser to iGene, Thali says this leaves open the field to other
companies to deliver improvements in the chain of examination.
"The future will be for smaller companies who
are bringing a service for this niche," he says. "The most important
thing is that you have a real chain based on IT."
This is some way off - and may never happen.
Milos Todorovic, lead analyst at Lux Research
and a specialist in medical innovation, says that while iGene's approach
is intriguing, it faces hurdles - not least the fact that the company
is starting from scratch in an expensive business. "A lot of things
would have to fall into place for them to be able to succeed with
something like this," he said.
That isn't stopping Chandran from dreaming big -
including the idea of scanning the living as part of any regular
medical checkup. "Just like a birth certificate starts with the
birth of a baby, the end of a person's life will end with a report in
which the 3D body of a person is captured," he said. "In that way we can
archive every person born on this planet."
(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
Edited by Ahmad Fakri
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