Iatia releases software package for imaging

A software package enabling users of electron microscopes to glean specialised information from their specimens is the second product to be released by newly listed vision sciences company Iatia.

The product, known as QPe, applies the company's Quantitative Phase Imaging (QPI) technology to transmission electron microscopes.

The software is said to allow researchers to see additional properties of specimens that would otherwise remain invisible.

The co-inventor of the QPI technology and chair of Iatia's scientific advisory board, Prof Keith Nugent, said he expected QPe to find applications in such areas as virology, geology and parasitology.

"QPe broadens the imaging options available to electron microscopy by providing access to phase techniques that are currently only available for optical microscopy."

The technology is built around an algorithm, developed at the University of Melbourne, to calculate a characteristic of transmitted radiation called phase. By calculating phase, characteristics that are transparent to radiation become visible.

Using a special light attached to a microscope and a digital camera connected via an adapter, images can be taken and transmitted to the proprietary QPe software, which is imbedded with the calculation required to measure phase.

Iatia managing director Philippe Cussinet said the economic argument for QPe was compelling, and that the market was comparable to its first product, QPm, which is estimated at $500 million.

"For an investment of approximately $US10,000 to install QPe, researchers are able to substantially increase the functionality of electron microscopes which typically cost $US300,000." Cussinet said.

"We have been extremely encouraged by the response from the market to our first microscopy product, QPm, and based on the very positive pre-marketing reaction to QPe, we expect it to also gain rapid acceptance."

He said six pre-release copies of the QPe software have already been sold to institutions in Australia and South East Asia.

QPm, which applies QPI technology to optical microscopes, was launched in the United States in last November, with Iatia so far receiving orders for about 100 units, which sell for about $US7000 each.

Iatia was trading around 15 cents at the time of writing, compared to its April 9 listing price of 25 cents.