MicroElastic is building the data-driven future of precision dermatology by developing a handheld device that uses ultrasound to instantly quantify the physical properties of skin, replacing subjective manual palpation that is currently used in clinical practice. Our platform will unlock the potential of skin properties to be used for precision medicine, improving patient care and extending lives for patients with heretofore challenging-to-stage disease.

For the 170,000 patients diagnosed with blood cancers like Leukemia and Lymphoma each year in the US, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation offers hope for survival. Unfortunately, for patients who have received allogeneic stem cell transplants, chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease (cGVHD) becomes a life-long threat (with up to 70% incidence) and the largest source of non-relapse mortality (approximately 50%). Management of sclerotic cGVHD is done through immunosuppression – a dynamic balancing act between therapeutic response and exposure to oft-fatal infections. Careful monitoring of disease progression and response are critical, but the clinical tools available to assess cGVHD are severely lacking. GVHD manifests in the skin as sclerosis, so the skin's mechanical properties may provide a readily accessible biomarker, but current methods of assessing the disease show too much inter-operator variability to properly stage intermediate levels of disease or monitor treatment response, hampering their utility in clinical management. The NIH Chronic GVHD Working Group has issued a plea for methods of quantifying the extent of cGVHD in the skin, stating “There is an urgent need for the development of more quantifiable and reproducible measurements or imaging methods that could be used in patients with sclerotic skin manifestations of chronic GVHD”

Our Bullseye™ precision skin quantification platform will provide our device and software as a service to clinical departments and practices for evaluating patients’ skin and tracking results over time. For notoriously-difficult-to diagnose GVHD patients, precision monitoring of this key manifestation of the disease will lead to earlier treatment and better titration of therapy to match response (or lack thereof) and improve patient care and outcomes. At the same time, efficient treatment will reduce the need for expensive prophylaxis to guard against infections, and effective treatment will avoid rehospitalizations, justifying reimbursement by payers. Furthermore, the objectivity of the measurements will enable streamlining clinical workflow for GVHD patient visits by enabling physician extenders to make the measurement alongside traditional vital signs, reserving specialists’ time with patients for communication and treatment planning. As a reimbursable procedure, this will also unlock new market opportunities for patients to be examined in between specialist visits, at their primary care facilities or even in their homes, with specialists reviewing the results via telemedicine.

The availability of an easy and precise method to quantify dermal elasticity will also unlock new fields of research into skin properties and how they respond to intrinsic and extrinsic perturbations. A quantitative endpoint for measuring response to therapy or disease severity will advance the study of skin conditions not limited to GVHD, but including morphea, scleroderma, photoaging, and scarring.

Developed at Duke University and protected by three international patents (pending), MicroElastic's Bullseye™ technology takes proven science and shrinks it down for the point-of-care. By taking advantage of a phenomenon called Constructive Shearwave Interference (CSI), Bullseye™ devices use focused ultrasound to generate vibrations around the edge of a "virtual biopsy core", and measure those propagating vibrations as they reach they core's center. The self-amplification of these signals and unique geometry lets us safely generate and easily measure these vibrations, enabling a portable form factor fit for any clinical setting.