CURIE 2008: Optics in Biomedical Engineering: Using Light to Study Live Cells and Organisms

Faculty: Professor Chris Schaffer

Project Team: Dr. Nozomi Nishimura, John Nguyen, Nate Rosidi, Flor Medina, Angela Wong, Fabian Canas, Jennifer Shum, and Joan Zhou

Advances in Biomedical Engineering are often made possible by the fusion of many different fields of science, technology and engineering. In this project, the CURIE Scholars will learn how optical technologies can be used to study and measure blood flow in a live person. Maintenance of adequate blood flow is essential for healthy physiology.Measurement of the volume, speed, and oxygenation of blood flow can all serve as important medical diagnostics. Optical techniques can be used to make such measurements of blood properties noninvasively, a significant feature for medical diagnostics as well as research applications.

The 2008 CURIE Scholars will learn about the physics of light as well as how optics can be used to study and make images of blood flow and other properties of blood. They will also learn about the physiology of the circulatory system and the fundamentals of fluid flow in the vasculature. CURIE scholars will also be given the challenge of constructing several different optically-based tools to image blood cells and vasculature, quantify blood flow and blood oxygenation, and make other measurements in the lab. The samples will range from their own fingertips to the brains of live rodents.

The students will be broken up into small teams, which will each use a different technology to measure different aspects of the microvasculature and blood circulation. Opticalintrinsic imaging, which relies on the color changes between oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin to measure blood oxygenation, is a commonly used tool by researchers and also by neurosurgeons. Pulse oximetry uses this same color change as well as the fluctuations in blood flow induced by the beating heart to measure oxygen saturation in arterial blood. Laser Doppler Flowmetry and Laser Speckle Contrast Analysis can measure the speed of blood flow using fluctuations in laser light brightness caused by the motion of red blood cells. Properties such as the polarization of light can be used to measure the microscopic motion of individual red blood cells, while high resolution imaging methods, such as laser scanning confocal microscopy, enable the sub-cellular features of blood cells to be visualized. Finally, two-photon microscopy is a research tool that can be used to look at blood flow in single capillaries deep in living tissues such as the brain. At the end of the project, the groups will compare their methods and results and discuss which techniques are best for various medical diagnostic and research needs.

The CURIE Scholars will experience how engineers learn about a medicalor research problem, gather the tools and technologies to address these problems, and put it all together to generate a working system that can have an impact on human health and medicine as well as enable new directions for future research.

The CURIE 2010 Project is TBA - Check Back for Updates