The overarching goal of the laboratory is the introduction of new technologies in clinical applications for the improvement of the diagnostic and therapeutic options of modern health care systems to directly impact patient prognosis and outcome. The research concentrates on two optical technologies which provide complementary, microstructural and biochemical, information.
Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)An emerging medical imaging modality which can provide microstructural images of tissue with a micrometer scale resolution. Image resolution improvement and sub-resolution feature information can greatly enhance the diagnostic utility of OCT. Research in this area includes:
- Improvement of the resolution of OCT systems
- Scatter size and distribution based diagnostics
- Specral analysis
- Dispersion and index of refraction measurements
Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)A spectroscopic method which can provide detailed biochemical information of the substances or tissues under investigation. Enhancement of the Raman signal by metal nanosurfaces can make this technique a very sensitive diagnostic tool. Areas of interest include:
- Classification and antibiogram of bacteria causing Urinary Tract Infections
- SERS using novel, multi-scale, bio-inspired, nanostructures
- SERS for food safety
Advanced Processing & Classification MethodsA common, horizontal, theme in the laboratory’s research is the processing and analysis of the data collected experimentally. The efficacy of the imaging and spectroscopic methods developed can be significantly enhanced by novel methodologies, including:
- Quantitative image analysis and feature extraction
- Advanced classifcation techiques (SVMs, Bioinspired rank order coding, neural networks, etc)
- Multi-scale, multi-modality, non-uniform data fusion and integration in disease networks