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Introducing a UCL Spinout Company, MetaboLight - Pioneering Brain Monitoring in Babies

By Joy Zhang, 2025

Introduction

MetaboLight’s technology has found early traction in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Preterm infants often suffer from conditions such as hypoxia (low oxygen levels) in the brain, which can quickly lead to acute injuries in the development of the brain and cause death or ultimately long term challenges including cerebral palsy and other performance difficulties. A research team at UCL is tackling this issue, stretching beyond traditional methods and working on providing creative solutions.

 

The proposing innovation is a device named CYRIL, a compact broadband near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system with real-time monitoring capabilities for metabolism and oxygen levels allow doctors to closely monitor the infant’s status of health, and also detect problems at an early stage which will make an impact heavily on long-term cognitive and physical development.

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Figure 1 (a) The broadband NIRS system is on the left with black optical fibres entering the cot. (b) The baby in the cot being monitored during treatment with broadband NIRS, EEG, transcutaneous monitors, blood pressure catheter, respirator and ECG (Bale et al., 2018, 2035-2047)

Why do we improve?

 

While traditional methods provide useful data on overall oxygenation or metabolic states, they lack the ability to measure oxygen levels in the brain directly and non-invasively in real time. Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) addresses these limitations (Scholkmann et al., 2013, 6-27), where it is used in the technology for CYRIL developed by MetaboLight, to allow early detection of oxygen related illness in newborn babies through continuous, non-invasive and specific monitoring of cerebral oxygenation and metabolism, which is a significant improvement over traditional methods. The common traditional methods include:

 

Pulse Oximetry

Pulse oximetry is a non-invasive method using a small sensor placed on the skin, typically on a hand or foot. It works by shining light through the skin and detecting changes in light absorption due to oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin. However, this technique primarily measures peripheral oxygenation and is not a direct indicator of cerebral oxygen levels. It provides only a general estimate of overall oxygenation in the blood, not specific to the brain.

 

Arterial Blood Gas (ABG) Analysis

This method involves drawing blood from an arterial site, usually the umbilical artery or a peripheral artery, and measuring oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, pH, and other blood gases. While ABG provides accurate data on the oxygen content in the blood, it is an invasive technique, uncomfortable for the new-born, and does not give real-time information. Additionally, it provides systemic oxygenation data but not specific information about oxygenation in the brain.

 

Transcutaneous Monitoring

Transcutaneous monitors measure oxygen (tcpO₂) and carbon dioxide (tcpCO₂) levels by placing electrodes on the baby's skin. The sensors heat the skin to increase blood flow and allow diffusion of gases through the skin to estimate oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood. Although less invasive than ABG, it is still only an indirect measure of oxygenation and provides general data, not specific to the brain or localized tissue oxygenation.

 
Invasive Monitoring with Catheters

In certain critical cases, catheters are inserted into veins or arteries (such as the umbilical artery) to monitor oxygen levels more continuously. However, like ABG analysis, these methods are invasive and can carry risks of infection, discomfort, and complications, particularly in fragile new-borns.

 

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

In specialized cases, MRI techniques such as functional MRI (fMRI) or magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can be used to assess brain function and oxygenation. These methods are highly accurate in mapping brain oxygenation and activity but are impractical for continuous monitoring, as they are expensive, not portable, and involve moving the newborn to the MRI machine.

 

NIRS system - Meet CYRIL

When holding your hand under a lamp, our naked eye cannot see through the skin. However when you shine a near infrared torch behind your hand, clear details of internal structure are visible. Near infrared light can travel far into the body – even through bone – while other colours with shorter wavelengths are absorbed and do not pass through. Changing oxygen levels in the blood pumping through our arteries and veins are revealed under this light. When oxygen binds to haemoglobin inside blood cells, it changes colour and becomes more red. So oxygen-packed blood in the arteries is bright red, while blood in the veins is more blue because the oxygen has been used up for metabolism. Let us zoom inside a neuron in the brain, the metabolism process requires oxygen and glucose to generate energy inside tiny ‘power stations’ called mitochondria. During metabolism, protein molecules work together to generate energy by shuttling chemicals around. One of them is called cytochrome c oxidase, which changes colour as energy is made. Until now, doctors have used two or three colours of light to measure oxygen levels in the brain, which only gives a limited view of what’s going on. Dr Tachtsidis’s team invented CYRIL, this device uses near infrared light to shine into the brain, the technique focuses on a wider spectrum of coloured light to get a much more detailed picture of metabolic activity inside the brain. Light travels in the optic fibres, some pass through the skull and brain and get back to the surface. The returning light is collected in the spectrometer, containing sensitive digital cameras with a computer to measure the relative amounts of different coloured light in the beams. Using this colour information they can calculate changes in the way that certain parts of the brain are using oxygen and generating energy, giving a readout of brain metabolism and activity. From there, this data can be used to figure out whether areas of the brain are working properly or have been damaged due to a lack of oxygen.

 

The birth of MetaboLight

The MetaboLight project started in 2010. It was developed by the Multimodal-Spectroscopy (MMS) research team from University College London's (UCL) - one of the world’s leading universities in healthcare innovation and medical applications - Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory. It is led by Dr IliasTachtsidis, a Professor in Biomedical Engineering. In 2020, the MetaboLight website was established, with its intentions as Dr Tachtidis explains : “It is the public research engagement front of our research, where I believe it is important for us researchers to showcase our work with monitoring very delicate patients to the public.” This platform displays bright visual assets with film and learning resources, the science for translating academic discoveries into practical applications in the interdisciplinary research lab to non-specialised audiences. In the hospital, Dr Tachtsidis’s team of engineers have tested the optimal wavelengths in CYRIL for monitoring haemoglobin and cytochrome c oxidase concentrations in the brain (Arifler et al. 2015, 933), and they work closely with Doctors and nurses to attain and analyse clinical data on the new device. After the treatment with CYRIL, babies are taken to an MRI scanner in a special transport incubator. The MRI scan gives a highly detailed picture of any changes in brain metabolism and the level of damage, but previously mentioned, the MRI machine is impractical for moving newborn babies around. By comparing the results from CYRIL with these detailed scans, they can test and improve accuracy and reliability of the new technology.

 

Future - impactful ways

Dr Ilias Tachtsidis shares “we have created really imaginative and impactful ways of sharing how my interdisciplinary research is using light to understand brain function and improve patient care in newborn infants.”

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Figure 2: Picture taken with Dr Ilias Tachtsidis in his office with a CYRIL model. The newspaper on the table contains an article on MetaboLight and the branded stamps were used when Dr Tachtsidis was working with children in the hospital.

At the forefront, the research team is approaching measurements in applications before birth, where they are keen on adapting new solutions to premature infants with latest technology to monitor the foetus and relieve distressed parturient mothers at high risks. Future work will focus on transforming the optical devices to make them more approachable, wearable and mobile for clinical use. They will combine machine learning which is a modern technique to make biomarkers more efficient in clinical instruments. Technologies to recognise new types of molecules, will enhance knowledge on the detection of the blood flow in babies’ brains, for medical doctors and nurses to operate these devices to provide real-time information on the brain function.

 

For any queries relating to details of the research on MetaboLight discussed in this article, please contact Dr Ilias Tachtsidis via i.tachtsidis@ucl.ac.uk

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