SonoVol

SonoVol is an ultrasound imaging company developing small animal imaging systems specifically for preclinical research.
SonoVol's mission is to accelerate drug development and disease research by making preclinical imaging studies dramatically easier, more reliable, and less expensive. End users from pharmaceutical companies, university core facilities and university research labs can utilize high-frequency ultrasound technologies to perform in vivo research within mouse models to study cancer and cardiovascular disease states.
SonoVol is currently located at First Flight Venture Center in Research Triangle Park within the borders of Durham, North Carolina.
History
SonoVol is a spinout company from the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNC Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. It was founded in 2012 by Drs. Ryan Gessner and Paul Dayton. Gessner was finishing his doctoral degree in Dayton's Lab when the idea for the company was first pitched. Dr. Dayton has over 17 years of ultrasound engineering experience and has published over 120 papers in the field of ultrasonic imaging.
SonoVol has primarily received grant funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Cancer Institute. In 2014, SonoVol received its first extramural grant, a phase I Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) from the National Science Foundation. The project grant was titled "An Ultrasonic Device for Rapid Tomographic Rodent Tissue and Vasculature Imaging" and the award was for $250,000. In 2015, SonoVol received a phase II STTR grant from the National Science Foundation for a project titled "Developing a New Platform Technology for 3D Ultrasound Imaging" and the award was for $726,576. Also during 2015, SonoVol received a phase I SBIR grant from the National Cancer Institute for a project titled "Development of an Ultrasound-Optical Hybrid Modality Preclincal Imaging Tool" and the award was for $217,507.
Another company, Kitware was awarded a $1.26 million phase II grant from the National Institute of Health and is collaborating with SonoVol to commercialize their approach of quantifying microvessels using Acoustic Angiography into an ultrasound imaging system for preclinical research.
Technology
SonoVol has patented hardware and software technology including, Acoustic Angiography, a contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging technique which allows researchers to noninvasively view tumor vasculature. This technology helps researchers learn more about angiogenic activity within tumors and observe response to therapy. An early publication about Acoustic Angiography appeared in ' in 2012 and was titled "Mapping Vasculature with Acoustic Angiography Yields Quantifiable Differences between Healthy and Tumor-bearing Tissue Volumes in a Rodent Model".
It is not the first method that can do microvascular mapping but it can achieve higher resolution and greater signal-to-noise contrast imaging than previous methods.

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