A medical research team at Dalhousie University is developing a miniature ultrasound device small enough to pass through an eardrum as part of work on new technologies to diagnose and treat ear diseases.

The project received $311,000 in funding from both the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Nova Scotia Research and Innovation Trust.

Jeremy Brown, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, initially designed the device to be used on mice. It can detect and show the image of a mouse's tiny heartbeat.

"When you're looking at structures that are, you know, 10 microns in size, just changing the angle of the ultrasound transducer even slightly will completely change the image that you see on your screen," Brown told CBC News on Tuesday.

The next step for Brown is to build a model for the human inner ear, which is buried deep in bone and goes virtually undetected by CT scans or MRIs.

Brown has been working on the project with Dr. Manohar Bance, a leading ear specialist, since February.

"I'm really excited at the opportunity to design this probe with a surgeon so I know it's going to work before I even build it," Brown said.

Bance said the device could help him in treating illnesses like Ménière's disease, which causes symptoms such as dizziness and ringing in the ears.

"A device that's small enough and sensitive enough and has enough resolution to actually see the inner ear structures could revolutionize our understanding of many ear diseases and response to treatment," Bance said.

The tiny ultrasound device could be just the beginning for the Brown-Bance research team. The duo plan to set up a micro-fabrication lab to build and test other prototypes using the funding they received.