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Non- and minimally-invasive diagnosis and therapy / Point-of-care diagnostics

Photonics for non- and minimally-invasive diagnosis and therapy deals with the application of photonic techniques to support subjective examinations by objective criteria, e.g. by supporting visual anamnesis of tissue by objective imaging metrology techniques and analytical spectroscopic methods. In the optimal case the diagnostic step can be combined with a subsequent and also minimal-invasive treatment of the diagnosed condition. Based on knowledge gained in the network and complemented by nonphotonic techniques, P4L aims to identify possibilities for new photonic non- or minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic approaches and their practical realization. Photonics for point-of-care diagnostics is concerned with the promotion of the development of point-of-care diagnosis based on explorations and findings of fundamental research towards easy-to-use and cost efficient systems, which allow, in the optimal case, a parallel testing e.g. for many diseases and molecular signatures. To enable cost efficient and fast point-of-care testing new detection schemes have to be developed and evaluated. The testing schemes will exploit the existing knowledge on photonic technologies and apply them on specific applications in medical testing.

Examples of joint research projects in Photonics4Life:

• In vivo hyperspectral lifetime measurements of skin cancer autofluorescence. This project initiated by IMPERIAL and ULUND deals with the investigation of hyperspectral fluorescence lifetime spectroscopy for in vivo detection, diagnosis and delineation of skin cancers to build a kind of further developed dermatoscope.
• Novel optical techniques for µ-Flow Diagnostics. the intention of this project is to gain fundamental insight in the characteristics of microfluidic operation units for Biochips and their dependency on geometric parameters. This project, initiated by IPHT, UoM, VTT, Mesa+ and VUB will contribute to improve and optimize Biochip designs.
• Comparison between fluorescence and SPR imaging biochips for immuno-based and DNA-based assays. This project has as main objective to critically evaluate fluorescence and SPR optical biochips technologies for diagnostics applications, in terms of limit of detection ( LOD), sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility.
• NIR-laser-activated gold nanoparticles: perspectives in minimally invasive diagnosis and therapy. this projects deals with the preparation of various kinds of gold nanoparticles and their employment for therapy as well as diagnosis. ( CNR-IFAC, ULUND, SSU, MESA+ and IMPERIAL)

Contact person(s):

Dr. Roberto Pini

Phone:	+39 055 5225 303
Fax:
Mail:	r [dot] pini [at] ifac [dot] cnr [dot] it

Involved partners:

• Vrije Universiteit Brussel
• Institute of Photonic Technology
• University of Muenster
• ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences
• Saratov State University
• University of St Andrews
• VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
• Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
• Department of Medicine 1, University Hospital Erlangen-Nuremberg
• University of Twente
• CNRS Institut d'Optique graduate school
• Istituto di Fisica Applicata "Nello Carrara"