Photonics enables a microscope in a needle for imaging in deep tissues

• Who: Professor David Sampson, University of Western Australia
• When: Friday, May 2nd, 11:00 am
• Where: Eng. Sciences Bldg., Room 2001

Volumetric OCT image of mouse muscle.

Abstract: Microscopy  is  usually  performed  in  a  laboratory  on  carefully  prepared,  very  thin  samples  and  achieves resolutions  of  better  than  a  micrometer.  Medical imaging, by contrast, is usually performed on sizeable portions of the living human body, and resolutions are rarely better than 1 millimeter. Over the last decade, there has been great progress in applying optical microscopy techniques to the human body in a medical setting.  This push has been led by optical coherence tomography (OCT), which is now in mainstream use in ophthalmology and is gaining acceptance in cardiology. In this talk, 3D microscopic imaging deep inside tissue using the OCT microscope in a needle will be described. Needle delivery makes optical imaging possible in many tissues previously inaccessible to optics. Aimed  to  be broadly  accessible,  this talk  will describe the underpinning  photonics  and  guided-wave  optics design  and  fabrication  needed  to  make  high-quality  micro-imaging  possible.  Technical advances  such  as realization  of  ultra-small  needle  probes,  extended  imaging  depth  of  focus,  handheld  micrometer-resolution tracking,  and  multimodality  needle probes  combining  OCT with  fluorescence,  and  with  elastography will  be presented. It will describe how such probes are built into photonic systems and where they are being applied, such as in breast cancer surgery, as well as how the technology may evolve and where it may be applied in the future.    

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Bio: Winthrop Professor Sampson is Director of the Centre for Microscopy, Characterization & Analysis, a core facility of the University of Western Australia, and heads the Optical + Biomedical Engineering Laboratory (OBEL) in the School of Electrical, Electronic & Computer Engineering. He directs the Western Australian nodes of the Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility and Australia’s National Imaging Facility. He is a Fellow of the OSA and the SPIE, and an Associate Editor of IEEE Photonics Journal, the IEEE Transactions of Biomedical Engineering and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biomedical Optics and the journals Photonic Sensors and Photonics & Lasers in Medicine. W/Prof. Sampson’s research interests are in biomedical optical engineering, with an emphasis on photonics, imaging and microscopy. His current main interest, beyond advancing microscope-in-a-needle technology, is in optical elastography – the imaging of tissue mechanical properties. His other interests include anatomical optical coherence tomography for imaging in human airways, and holographic microscopy.    

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Dr. Sampson & IPS President Sudha Srinivasan.