We’re Iconeus
A Paris-based company helping researchers to gain new insights into neuroscience using our groundbreaking functional ultrasound technology.
Read on to find out about our story: how we got started, and the progress we’ve made in transforming fUS from theory to reality.
Our vision and mission
“At Iconeus, we are rooted in scientific excellence and the pioneering spirit of our founders.
Our passion for pushing technological boundaries drives us in the relentless pursuit of innovation, enabling us to develop best-in-class ultrasound solutions that revolutionize neuroimaging.
We envision a future where functional ultrasound neuroimaging (fUS) empowers neuroscience researchers to expand the frontiers of brain science and equips clinicians with groundbreaking clinical decision support tools at the point of care.
Our mission is to deliver state-of-the-art ultrasound neuroimaging technologies that fuel scientific breakthroughs, translate discoveries into non-operator dependent solutions, and ensure continuous accessibility at the patient’s bedside — transforming the way neurological conditions are understood, diagnosed, treated, and monitored”
Our story
Looking back on the origins of Iconeus, it’s amazing how quickly it all happened.
Our academic beginnings
In 2011, a team led by Professor Mickael Tanter, at ESPCI Paris, published a paper introducing functional ultrasound (Macé et al., Nature Methods, 2011). In it, they proposed that very high framerates would radically improve Doppler imaging sensitivity, enabling measurement of blood volumes in smaller vessels than previously possible.
Taking benefit of this 50-fold increase in sensitivity, they also demonstrated that such ‘ultrafast ultrasound’ can exploit the neurovascular coupling.
This allowed them to carry out functional imaging of brain activity, with the first stunning movies acquired using fUS imaging being obtained in rodents.
Development of a commercially available solution
In subsequent years, Tanter’s team released a succession of papers, written in collaboration with several neuroscience teams. In particular, with Dr. Zsolt Lenkei and Dr. Bruno Osmanski, also at ESPCI Paris, they demonstrated the capacity of fUS to image functional connectivity in rat brains in a minimally invasive way (for example, see Osmanski et al., Nature Communications, 2014). Together with their colleagues Dr. Mathieu Pernot and Dr. Thomas Deffieux, international experts in biomedical ultrasound, Tanter and Lenkei realized the enormous potential of fUS imaging for neuroscience, so in 2016 they founded Iconeus, with the aim of making the technology commercially available to a global audience.
Refining and field-testing fUS imaging
Since our foundation in 2016, we’ve worked on a number of INSERM patents on fUS technology (six of which are now exclusively licensed to us), have benefited from an Advanced ERC Grant, and have been part of the ESPCI Paris ‘PC Up’ incubator program.
All this has provided the resources to take functional ultrasound from the physics bench to being ready for the marketplace, by making the software easy to use, improving the instrument design, obtaining the necessary certifications, and by helping over 10 collaborators to field-test prototypes of Iconeus One in their labs as part of our ‘early adopter’ program (and publish their results, too).
Launch of Iconeus One
All this effort has borne fruit, and in October 2019 we were thrilled to formally launch Iconeus One at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago – a great day for all of us!
Iconeus completes assembly of the first Iconeus One functional ultrasound system for clinical research
Clinical applications of functional ultrasound took a step closer this week, with the release from our engineering workshop of the first Iconeus One system destined for use on humans. This represents a major milestone for our team, who have been busy optimizing Iconeus One for clinical studies, as well as building and delivering the system to a tight schedule.
Launch Of Multi Array
Launch of our IcoPrime-4D MultiArray probe for uncovering resting-state networks in the brains of awake, active mice. Unlike previous approaches, our ‘simultaneous multi-slice’ scanning technology is both highly sensitive and non-invasive, opening new possibilities for understanding brain function.
