STTR Phase I: Multiple Eye Disease Detection Using a Smartphone

The broader impact/commercial impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to proactively manage eye health. Approximately 285 million people and 39 million people suffer respectively from visual impairment and blindness. Monitoring of eye disease in early stages is critical to slowing its progression, but currently this assessment requires specialized equipment in ophthalmology practices or optometry offices. Smartphone-based disease detection is customizable, portable, easy-to-access, and multi-functional. This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to design and develop an eye disease diagnostic tool using a smartphone. This project will develop and validate novel data acquisition, image processing and machine learning techniques for keratoconus, glaucoma, and cataract detection, including new algorithms for detection of motion and noise artifacts to reduce image corruption. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.