WARF Accelerator Funds Morgridge Team

by Taylor Kennedy

A team from the Morgridge Institute for Research won funding through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Accelerator Program, the Morgridge Institute announced today.

The group, led by UW-Madison graduate student Brandon Walker, looks to advance a modular, multisource X-ray tube that has applications for both high-speed computed tomography (CT) and 3-D metal printing.

Walker’s design includes a large number of X-ray sources positioned around the patient in stationary modules. From there, all the X-ray sources rapidly trigger electronically one after another.

According to the release, not only will this design help with CT and 3-D metal printing, but it could have effects on the medical industry (e.g. printing of customized medical implants).

The funding from the WARF Accelerator will be used to move the multisource X-ray tube from design to working prototype, set to be used in summer of 2016.