Principal Investigator Peter So
Project Website http://web.mit.edu/solab/Research/FiberEndoscopy.html
Based on two-photon deep tissue imaging technology, we are developing a miniaturized system for clinical diagnosis. We aim to distinguish healthy and pathological tissues based on their microscopic morphology and the variations in their endogenous fluorescence spectra. The development of this endoscopic instrument may enable non-invasive cancer diagnosis in dermal, gynecological, and gastrointestinal systems.
Two-photon fluorescence microscopic imaging has been demonstrated to be a new way to produce optical sectioned images in highly scattering medium such as tissues (ref.1 to 6). The development of a two-photon endoscope will be a critical step toward realizing non-invasive optical biopsy. It is clear that the imaging of intra-vessel structural morphology is of great clinical importance, especially the techniques that can image the tissue structural morphology beneath the surfaces of the internal biological vessels.
However, the endoscope should be as small as possible because it would be used to image the internal human organ systems. A promising way is to use single-mode and multi-mode fiber as well as GRIN lens for light delivering, focusing, scanning and collecting. To do this, one should solved the following challenge problems:
1) Group-Velocity Dispersion(2) Scan methods(3) Small Size,(4) High signal-to-noise ratio