The Biophotonics Laboratory is located in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. Our research focuses on developing minimally invasive optical technologies for the diagnosis and treatment of disease, particularly for early cancer. It is widely believed that the greatest achievement that can be made in cancer management is the early detection and subsequent treatment of disease. The next generation cancer management strategies require technologies that combine sensing, targeting, and treating of the earliest stage disease. Our approach combines optical imaging, spectroscopy, and nanotechnology to develop systems capable of combined diagnosis and treatment of early cancer. In addition, the lab actively studies the basic mechanisms of light-tissue interactions to understand light transport and develop novel imaging strategies.

Recent Publications

 

Rajaram N, Migden M, Nguyen T, Reichenberg JS, Tunnell JW. Noninvasive diagnosis of nonmelanoma skin cancer using optical spectroscopy. Lasers Surg Med (in press), 2010

Park J, Estrada A, Schwartz JA, Diagaradjane P, Krishnan S, Payne JD, Dunn AK, Tunnell JW. Intra-organ biodistribution of gold nanoparticles using intrinsic two photon induced photoluminescence. Lasers Surg. Med. (in press), 2010

Rajaram N, Gopal A, Zhang X, Tunnell JW. Experimental validation of the effects of microvasculature pigment packaging on in vivo diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Lasers Surg. Med. 42:680–688, 2010

Erickson T, Mazur A, Cuccia D, Durkin A, Tunnell JW. A Lookup-Table Method for Imaging Optical Properties with Structured Illumination Beyond the Diffusion Theory Regime. J Biomed Opt 15(3):036013, 2010

Yan C, Pattani V, Tunnell JW, Ren P. Temperature-induced unfolding of epidermal growth factor (EGF): insight from molecular dynamics simulation. Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modeling (in press), 2010

Rajaram N, Aramil T, Lee K, Reichenberg JS, Nguyen TH, Tunnell JW. Design and validation of a clinical instrument for spectral diagnosis of cutaneous malignancy. Appl Opt 49(2):142-152, 2010