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11/7/2007

Optical engineers go to new lengths to expose cancer
Bioengineering researchers win $2M research project grant

BY SHAWN HUTCHINS
Special to the Rice News

Optical engineers are going to new lengths -- lengths of scale, that is -- to develop high-performance imaging systems that pinpoint, diagnose and monitor the treatment of cancer.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has named Rice University the recipient of a $2 million investigator-initiated research project grant to build and test an advanced dual-functioning medical instrument called the Bi-FOV Endoscope.

	The 4M is smaller than a penny and is currently being tested to detect malaria, tuberculosis and oral cancer.

“We believe that the low-cost endoscope with its enhanced FOV, or field-of-view, capabilities will quickly become an important imaging and monitoring tool,” said Tomasz Tkaczyk, assistant professor in bioengineering and principal investigator on the grant. The five-year, multidisciplinary project will involve several institutions and three subcontractors, H.T. Micro, Braggone and Black Forest Engineering.

Rice’s Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the Stanley C. Moore Professor, department chair for Bioengineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, is a co-principal investigator for the project. Her Optical Spectroscopy and Imaging Laboratory will develop the molecular contrast agent compounds that bind safely to biomarkers and illuminate the cellular architecture and organization.  

Through a long-term collaborative effort that began in 2001 to develop multimodal miniature microscopes (4Ms), a team of researchers at Rice, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and University of Arizona are taking the 4M technology from bench to bedside by building a new imaging system that scans wide areas of tissue noninvasively while detecting the cellular and molecular characteristics of the disease in both low and high-spatial resolution.

More than 85 percent of cancers arise in epithelial tissue, so this area of research has become an important battleground for researchers.

"The epithelium is a primary body tissue made up of one or more layers of closely packed cells that have almost no intercellular spaces," said Tkaczyk. "One of the greatest challenges in optical engineering and physics is to navigate a 300-micron-thick layer of tissue while clearly distinguishing between both wide-field and molecular fields of view."

For example, at low magnification, the dual-imaging endoscope will show an area of several square centimeters to identify suspicious lesions. Then, with the help of contrast agents, the high-resolution component will provide 3-D optical cross-sectioning capability while exposing abnormal subcellular and molecular features within the various levels of tissue.

"Due to its compact size and capability of producing high-resolution images, the Bi-FOV has tremendous potential for point-of-care diagnostics -- especially in developing countries or remote regions of the world," said Richards-Kortum, who is also director of the new global health initiative Rice 360°: Technology Solutions for World Health.

NCI’s funding for the project supports testing of and enhancements to the device for improved early detection and monitoring of epithelial cancer, as well as adjusting the design for mass production.

"There is a tremendous need for novel technologies that can detect precancerous lesions without tissue removal," said Ann Gillenwater, associate professor and associate surgeon in the Department of Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
"Optical imaging systems are inexpensive and are quickly playing a critical role in all aspects of cancer detection and treatment."

Gillenwater’s group will play a key role in testing the new endoscope in clinical trials and translating its technology from bench to bedside.

Tkaczyk, who joined Rice in July, specializes in bioimaging techniques and has worked with Mike Descour and Eustace Dereniak at the University of Arizona in the Biomedical Engineering Department and College of Optical Sciences. Descour and Dereniak are also co-principal investigators on the Bi-FOV Endoscope project. Tkaczyk completed his doctorate degree at the Warsaw University of Technology in Warsaw, Poland, in the Department of Mechatronics, Institute of Micromechanics and Photonics, where he specialized in optical engineering and physical optics.