02/05/2021
By Joanne Gagnon-Ketchen

Colloquium will begin at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021

Join via Zoom

“Non-linear optical microscopic imaging and its role in improving disease diagnostics,“ Irene Georgakoudi, (Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University)

Abstract:

Histopathological tissue evaluation procedures for disease diagnosis have remained essentially unchanged for the past century. Yet, they demand highly trained personnel, significant resources, and infrastructure, and provide assessments of tissue that has been highly processed. Diagnostic features rely primarily on morphological characteristics and have not evolved to incorporate a wealth of functional information that we have acquired during the last decades regarding disease development. I will present an overview of studies that we have been pursuing that aim to exploit endogenous sources of optical contrast to yield quantitative metrics of not only morphological, but also functional cell and tissue properties, without the need to excise tissue. Specifically, I will discuss the use of two-photon excited fluorescence images acquired based on detection of endogenous signal from NADH and FAD to acquire detailed information regarding changes in metabolic function. Such changes are directly related to changes in the relative levels of essential metabolic pathways and are detected in three dimensional engineered tissues, freshly excised tissues, animals, and human patients in vivo. Further, I will discuss the potential of the combined use of endogenous fluorescence and scattering signatures of collagen fibers to assess subtle changes in organization and crosslinking that are associated with biomechanical changes in diseased tissues. Our ultimate goal is to perform such measurements in a manner that essentially brings the microscope to the patient enabling functional imaging to improve disease diagnosis and monitoring.

Bio:

Georgakoudi obtained a B.A. in Physics from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Rochester, and has been working on the use of lasers for therapeutic and diagnostic applications since her undergraduate years. Her interests in spectroscopy and spectroscopic imaging using endogenous sources of contrast were founded during her postdoctoral years at the MIT Spectroscopy Lab. After working on the development of fluorescence-based in vivo flow cytometry while an instructor at the Wellman Laboratories for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Georgakoudi joined Tufts in 2004. She is the author of several patents on the development and use of spectroscopy and imaging to characterize tissues or to detect specific populations of cells, and has published numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts, review articles, and book chapters on these topics. She is the recipient of a Claflin Distinguished Scholar, an NSF Career Award, and an American Cancer Society Research Scholar award and has served on the Board of Directors of the Optical Society of America.