Every year, roughly 375,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with cancer, and more than half will undergo surgery—yet surgeons still rely on eyesight alone to distinguish cancerous tissue from healthy tissue, a method with notoriously poor contrast that leads to missed tumours during diagnosis and incomplete removal during operations. This Optical and Acoustic imaging for Surgical and Interventional Sciences (OASIS) Hub aims to replace that reliance on human vision with low-cost, portable imaging tools that use light and sound to give surgeons real-time, high-contrast views of cancer. The core problem is that conventional imaging cannot reliably show where cancer ends and healthy tissue begins, driving high rates of recurrence after surgery and missed diagnoses during surveillance. If successful, OASIS could transform the roughly one million cancer-related procedures performed annually in the UK and tens of millions worldwide. The hub will develop new minimally invasive devices, build infrastructure for clinical trials, create annotated datasets from emerging imaging modalities, and train a generation of researchers with entrepreneurial and translational skills. By uniting academic teams, NHS hospitals, more than 20 industrial partners, and patient groups, the project aims to make cancer surgery more precise, less invasive, and more accessible across the UK population.
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The Optical and Acoustic imaging for Surgical and Interventional Sciences (OASIS) Hub aims to improve our ability to detect the earliest signs of cancer and improve surgical visualisation to optimise tumour resection. Our vision is to establish a vibrant world-leading ecosystem of scientific and industrial innovators to advance the clinical state-of-the-art in optical and acoustic imaging hardware and software. Each year in the UK ~375,000 people are diagnosed with cancer and >50% will receive a surgical intervention, yet our conventional imaging tools are limited to replicating human vision. Our reliance on human eyesight is limited by poor contrast for cancer, which leads to high miss rates in surveillance and diagnosis, then incomplete resection and propensity for recurrence in surgery. There is a critical unmet need for improved cancer visualisation, which if met could impact over a million procedures annually in UK and tens of millions worldwide. Optical and acoustic imaging tools are uniquely able to provide low-cost, portable, high contrast, visualisation of disease in miniature medical device systems. We focus on three core challenges: enhancing contrast for tumour visualisation; enabling depth resolution for tumour staging; and providing multi-resolution multi-modal information to overcome the limitations of standalone technologies without adding burden to clinical workflow. To maximise the potential of optical and acoustic imaging tools through the OASIS Hub, we propose the following five objectives: O1: Develop new minimally invasive devices that augment current standard-of-care using optical, acoustic and photoacoustic tissue interactions, by unifying the disparate UK research community in a hub and spokes model where spokes are engaged through pump-priming, training events and workshops. O2: Establish infrastructure for single- and multi-centre clinical trials specialising in imaging devices, from feasibility towards Phase I, building on the leadership teams’ track record of first-in-human optical and acoustic devices and standards development. Developing the first structured, annotated clinical datasets from emerging imaging modalities across diverse populations that span domains of variation representative for clinical needs. O3: Create an engaged ecosystem of academic, industry, public and NHS hospital partnerships to accelerate technology development and translation. Capitalising on our >20 industrial partners, from UK SMEs to global strategics with significant UK presence, and the vibrant UK investment community to finance new ventures. O4: Cultivate a portfolio of public and patient involvement and engagement (PPIE) that fosters dialogue and promotes co-creation of solutions optimised for clinical translation, considering accessibility and explainability of quantitative optical and acoustic imaging biomarkers. O5: Provide a portfolio of high-quality training in an inclusive environment to equip future leaders with multidisciplinary, translational and entrepreneurial mindsets to catalyse new research and spin-offs. These objectives demand the partnerships enabled by OASIS, uniting academic and clinical teams to interface with industrial partners and investors, and to co-create solutions with patients and the public. We have engaged a vibrant industrial ecosystem from UK SMEs to global strategics, generating excitement for our vision that has led to contributions to training activities, co-sponsorship of projects and PhD students, advice on regulatory processes, joint standards development, hosting of internships, among others. Our investment in training will maximise opportunities for PPIE through funds for innovation and novel approaches to science communication. Our flagship programme will co-create new technological capabilities to catalyse sustained impact on the NHS by providing more information-rich, less invasive interventions that are accessible to the UK population and beyond.
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