Massachusetts General Hospital

Wellman Center Lecture Series

Date: 04/02/2013 - 04/02/2013
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Location: Thier 1 Conference Room
Contact: Nicole DeVoe, ndevoe@partners.org

Description:
"Spectroscopic imaging as a noninvasive diagnostic for skin cancer" Presented by James W. Tunnell, PhD

Agenda:

James W. Tunnell, PhD
Associate Professor & Undergraduate Advisor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin

“Spectroscopic imaging as a noninvasive diagnostic for skin cancer”

Optical technologies hold great promise for providing minimally invasive diagnostics and highly selective therapies in the application area of cancer. Spectroscopic techniques (e.g. Raman and diffuse optical spectroscopy) allow one to probe tissue micro-architecture (e.g. nuclear density, collagen content, blood vessel size) and function at the molecular level (e.g. blood oxygen saturation). Device and algorithm development are necessary to translate these traditional bench-top methods to clinically usable devices. This seminar will focus on our efforts to develop optical spectroscopic systems, both point-probe and wide-field imaging, with a specific focus for the application of non-invasive diagnose of skin cancer. We will highlight several techniques that include multi-modality optical spectroscopy (combined Raman, diffuse optical and laser induced fluoresce), spatial frequency domain imaging, and scanning diffuse optical imaging. As a clinical example, we will demonstrate the performance of these systems in an 80 patient clinical feasibility study conducted at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center and UT Southwestern Medical Center. These biophotonic solutions provide minimally-invasive strategies that may augment the current standard-of-care in the detection and treatment of cancer.

Preregistration required? no

Registration closed? no