José Luis Rubio

"Skin cancer is the most common form of this deadly disease: every year between two and three million new cases are diagnosed worldwide, and these numbers are on the rise due to the progressive aging of the population. Fortunately for the vast majority, most cases are nonmelanomas, which rarely prove fatal. In order to diagnose skin cancer, currently it is necessary to perform a biopsy, a procedure that in most cases proves to be unnecessary. Only one of every 500 biopsies performed comes back as positive for skin cancer. In order to reduce the number of invasive, diagnostic procedures performed, the young, Spanish innovator José Luis Rubio has developed a portable devise that produces high resolution images of the patients´ skin.

The device, designed by Rubio at his company Medlumics and which will be commercialized by Dermalumics, takes pictures of the skin with a resolution of 10 microns with a depth of up to two millimeters. This facilitates the morphological study of the skin growth without the need to perform a biopsy until the existence of a carcinoma has been confirmed. The device can also be used to guide the biopsy procedure and in surgical interventions to remove tumors."