Optics

The Vanderbilt Biomedical Optics Laboratory is examining and developing ways to harness light to image, diagnose, and treat disease. The laboratory conducts research into laser-tissue interaction, cellular effects of laser-induced stimuli, tissue ablation, Free Electron Laser beam delivery, optical diagnosis of diseased tissue, and a variety of optical techniques used in clinical settings.

An area of the laboratory’s work that has achieved international recognition involves stimulating nerve cells with lasers instead of the traditional method involving the use of electricity.

The laboratory has special expertise in using noninvasive optical techniques in diagnosing and assessing cancer and precancer. One application of this research is a method of accurately determining the margins of brain tumors during surgery, using combined diffuse reflectance and fluorescence spectroscopy for brain tissue diagnosis during surgery. Brain shift during surgery causes preoperative tomograms to be inaccurate representations of actual tissue location. The laboratory is developing a spectral imaging system to relay to the surgeon the location of tumors.

Co-Directors: Duco Jansen,

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering,

and Anita Mahadevan-Jansen,

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering                                                           [next page]