- For Contributing to Invention and Development of Optical Coherence Tomography -

The Honda Foundation is a public interest incorporated foundation established by Soichiro Honda and his younger brother Benjiro, and is currently led by President Hiroto Ishida. The foundation established the Honda Prize in 1980 as Japan’s first international award that acknowledges achievements contributing to "the creation of a truly humane civilization."

In 2024, the 45th Honda Prize will be awarded to Dr. James G. Fujimoto, Elihu Thomson Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Research Laboratory of Electronics, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the U.S.A., for his research group’s development of optical coherence tomography (OCT). The prize also acknowledges his contribution to the commercialization and clinical translation of OCT in ophthalmology, cardiology, and biomedical research.

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OCT is a new imaging modality which is analogous to ultrasound, except that it measures the echo time delay and magnitude of backscattered light instead of sound. OCT enables real-time, microscopic resolution imaging of a subsurface structure in biological tissues and materials. It has applications in multiple medical specialties as well as fundamental research and manufacturing. OCT can be combined with fiber optic catheters, endoscopes, and laparoscopes to enable imaging inside the body. It enables "optical biopsy," imaging pathology in real time, without the need to remove specimens as in conventional excisional biopsy.

The development of OCT is an example of the power of multidisciplinary collaborative research teams which span fundamental research, engineering, clinical medicine, and industry. In the late 1980s, such a multidisciplinary project was relatively uncommon, and Dr. Fujimoto’s team demonstrated a pioneering approach to joint medical-engineering research.

Dr. Fujimoto’s team first aimed to apply OCT in ophthalmology. OCT was invented by David Huang, an MD, PhD student in Fujimoto’s research group, working in close collaboration with Eric Swanson, an expert on satellite optical communication, and Drs. Carmen Puliafito and Joel Schuman, retina and glaucoma specialists. OCT has become a standard of care in ophthalmology with 20 to 30 million procedures performed worldwide every year. It facilitates early detection of diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma, enabling patients to be treated before irreversible loss of vision occurs.

Intravascular OCT was pioneered by visiting scientist Mark Brezinski, an MD, PhD cardiologist. Startup companies led by Swanson combined with industry investment played a key role in commercializing OCT in ophthalmology as well as cardiology. Today there is an international research community with over 100 academic research groups and companies developing OCT technology and clinical applications.

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OCT can be used to guide disease treatment, improving outcomes and saving health care costs. In the future, OCT of the eye may be used in optometrists’ shops, drug stores, and primary care doctors’ offices to screen for diabetes, neurological and other systemic diseases. In the field of cardiology, intravascular OCT is emerging as a valuable technique for guiding treatment of myocardial infarction. Clinical studies have shown intravascular OCT treatment guidance can reduce rates of major adverse cardiac events.

Over the years, the Honda Foundation has been promoting "ecotechnology*" as its mission. Dr. Fujimoto, who led the OCT research team, is the only researcher who consistently contributed to the development and the dissemination of OCT is fully in accord with the mission and worthy of the highest recognition. Therefore, the 45th Honda Prize will be awarded to Dr. Fujimoto.

An award ceremony will be held at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan, on November 18, 2024. In addition to a prize medal and a diploma, the laureate will be awarded 10 million yen.

*Ecotechnology: Human-friendly philosophy founded on science and technology. It is designed to harmonize the natural and human environments, and find resolutions to social issues, adopting a methodology that implies something more than just "being friendly to the Earth," which is the meaning usually associated with the word "ecology."

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