The main underlying premise of our work in this area is that a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in disease onset and progression will lead to earlier and more reliable diagnostics, as well as improved treatment. Furthermore, our research efforts are motivated by the hypothesis that high resolution in vivo imaging is essential to obtain a more complete understanding of disease processes in a complex living organism.
While much OCT research has focused on clinical applications, the role of OCT in the basic sciences is less developed. For instance, OCT-based elastography offers a unique high-resolution 3D imaging capability to study the role of mechanical properties in tumor initiation and subsequent local invasion. In the increasingly significant area of cancer mechanics, an important outstanding problem is to determine the in vivo significance of in vitro studies on the role of the mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix (ECM) on cancer initiation and development.
In order to bring our work on Imaging Science and Technology and Tissue and Cell Mechanics to bear on important basic science questions we collaborate with other researchers within the BME department, as well as across campus. The clinical applications of our work will be explored through collaborations with researchers at the Weill Medical College.
Relevant papers
- Fercher, A.F., W. Drexler, C.K. Hitzenberger, and T. Lasser, “Optical coherence tomography – principles and applications”. Reports on Progress in Physics, 66(2): 239-303, 2003.
- Vakoc, B.J., R.M. Lanning, J.A. Tyrrell, T.P. Padera, L.A. Bartlett, T. Stylianopoulos, L.L. Munn, G.J. Tearney, D. Fukumura, R.K. Jain, and B.E. Bouma, “Three-dimensional microscopy of the tumor microenvironment in vivo using optical frequency domain imaging”. Nature Medicine, 15(10): p. 1219-U151, 2009.
- Graf B.W., Chaney E.J., Marjanovic M., Adie S.G., De Lisio M., Valero M.C., Boppart M.D. and S.A. Boppart, “Long-term time-lapse multimodal intravital imaging of regeneration and bone-marrow-derived cell dynamics in skin”, TECHNOLOGY, DOI: 10.1142/S2339547813500027, Published Online 2013.