Job Description:
The project
Microscopic and spectroscopic optical tissue characterization are essential core technologies in modern biomedical research and will play key roles in developing non-invasive early cancer diagnostics, patient profiling and personalized medicine. In particular, Raman spectroscopy is a vibrational spectroscopic technique which provides the chemical signature of samples without the need to stain with dyes or fluorescence labels. For the last 6 years, this technique has been refined to allow tissue sections to be scanned with the aim of providing unsupervised diagnosis from a number of pathologies such as breast cancer. The level of sensitivity and specificity has now plateaued at around 80% for the most aggressive types of cancer such as invasive ductal carcinoma, opening the prospect of near-future, fibre-based, optical biopsy and augmented pathology. Unfortunately, Raman spectroscopy is inherently slow and acquisition is limited to a relatively small number of spectra per tissue section, hindering greatly the potential of stain-free optical diagnostic.
The aim of this project is to evaluate the benefits of fluorescence/SHG pre-screening to accelerate Raman spectral-imaging and increasing the accuracy of vibrational spectroscopy to detect oral cancer. We have recently developed a multimodal approach to tissue imaging and built a versatile platform which allows a number of optical techniques to be used on the same piece of tissue. This platform allows large, unstained sample areas to be assessed in an automated fashion for multi-channel widefield single-photon autofluorescence, two-photon autofluorescence intensity and lifetime and second harmonic generation (SHG). We will combine Raman spectral-imaging with fluorescence/SHG to improve the sensitivity and specificity of optical cancer diagnostic. Tissue will be pre-imaged using our new microscope and areas of interest will be fed into our Renishaw InVia Raman micro-spectrometer for spectroscopic interrogation, greatly speeding up the acquisition of Raman maps. We will investigate the use of advanced cluster analysis to improve analysis of the millions of spectra that this system can record on a single sample. In particular, we will quantify the importance of noise filtering, type of similarity coefficient, cluster scoring strategies and spatial/vibrational resolution for the diagnostic accuracy.
Eligibility
This studentship is open to Home (UK-based) candidates only.
Minimum 2:1 first degree in a related academic area.
Application details
Please forward a CV to Dr Frederic Festy (Frederic.festy@kcl.ac.uk) and apply via the King’s admissions portal.
Deadline: Monday, 12 January 2015
Additional Info:
[Click Here to Access the Original Job Post]
The project
Microscopic and spectroscopic optical tissue characterization are essential core technologies in modern biomedical research and will play key roles in developing non-invasive early cancer diagnostics, patient profiling and personalized medicine. In particular, Raman spectroscopy is a vibrational spectroscopic technique which provides the chemical signature of samples without the need to stain with dyes or fluorescence labels. For the last 6 years, this technique has been refined to allow tissue sections to be scanned with the aim of providing unsupervised diagnosis from a number of pathologies such as breast cancer. The level of sensitivity and specificity has now plateaued at around 80% for the most aggressive types of cancer such as invasive ductal carcinoma, opening the prospect of near-future, fibre-based, optical biopsy and augmented pathology. Unfortunately, Raman spectroscopy is inherently slow and acquisition is limited to a relatively small number of spectra per tissue section, hindering greatly the potential of stain-free optical diagnostic.
The aim of this project is to evaluate the benefits of fluorescence/SHG pre-screening to accelerate Raman spectral-imaging and increasing the accuracy of vibrational spectroscopy to detect oral cancer. We have recently developed a multimodal approach to tissue imaging and built a versatile platform which allows a number of optical techniques to be used on the same piece of tissue. This platform allows large, unstained sample areas to be assessed in an automated fashion for multi-channel widefield single-photon autofluorescence, two-photon autofluorescence intensity and lifetime and second harmonic generation (SHG). We will combine Raman spectral-imaging with fluorescence/SHG to improve the sensitivity and specificity of optical cancer diagnostic. Tissue will be pre-imaged using our new microscope and areas of interest will be fed into our Renishaw InVia Raman micro-spectrometer for spectroscopic interrogation, greatly speeding up the acquisition of Raman maps. We will investigate the use of advanced cluster analysis to improve analysis of the millions of spectra that this system can record on a single sample. In particular, we will quantify the importance of noise filtering, type of similarity coefficient, cluster scoring strategies and spatial/vibrational resolution for the diagnostic accuracy.
Eligibility
This studentship is open to Home (UK-based) candidates only.
Minimum 2:1 first degree in a related academic area.
Application details
Please forward a CV to Dr Frederic Festy (Frederic.festy@kcl.ac.uk) and apply via the King’s admissions portal.
Deadline: Monday, 12 January 2015
Requeriments :
Skills :
Areas :
Additional Info:
[Click Here to Access the Original Job Post]