Week 4 Liz Multiphoton in Surgery?

I write a lot about multiphoton microscopy and how it is a powerful tool for imaging disease progression in mouse models. I didn't really think about how multiphoton microscopy could be useful in the hospital setting since the penetration range is about 1mm and essentially meaningless on a human scale. That was what I thought LAST week.

In the course of setting up an experiment for an animal project, I learned that Dr. Sushmita Muckherjee images resected tumor samples to confirm the margins of normal and malignant tissue. She takes samples and images them before they are sent to the Pathology Department, without the use of an exogenous dye. This was something that Dr. Greenfield was very interested in using for tumor resections for his own patients.

Further, Dr. Watt Webb's laboratory is developing multiphoton endoscopes such that this type of imaging can be done before resection. I can't help but imagine what a powerful tool that will be.

This summer, I am learning that sometimes a new technology needs to be created and at other times the technology already exists and only needs to be refined to fit a new purpose or simply made available. I am discovering new uses for multiphoton microscopy and ways in which my collaborators can use existing microscopes for their own research. It makes me really excited about the work I am doing this summer and the impact it could have on future surgical procedures and future research