All are welcome, (attendance required for graduate students). Lunch is provided.

Irene Georgakoudi, Ph.D., Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University


Assessing Tissue Metabolic and Biomechanical Function through Label-free, High Resolution Imaging

Histopathological tissue evaluation procedures for disease diagnosis have remained essentially unchanged for the past century. Yet, they demand highly trained personnel, significant resources and infrastructure, and provide assessments of tissue that has been highly processed. Diagnostic features rely primarily on morphological characteristics and have not evolved to incorporate a wealth of functional information that we have acquired during the last decades regarding disease development. I will present an overview of studies that we have been pursuing that aim to exploit endogenous sources of optical contrast to yield quantitative metrics of not only morphological, but also functional cell and tissue properties, without the need to excise tissue. Specifically, I will discuss the use of two-photon excited fluorescence images acquired based on detection of endogenous signal from NADH and FAD to acquire detailed information regarding changes in metabolic function. Such changes are directly related to changes in the relative levels of essential metabolic pathways and are detected in three dimensional engineered tissues, freshly excised tissues, animals and human patients in vivo. Further, I will discuss the potential of the combined use of endogenous fluorescence and scattering signatures of collagen fibers to assess subtle changes in organization and crosslinking that are associated with biomechanical changes in diseased tissues. Our ultimate goal is to perform such measurements in a manner that essentially brings the microscope to the patient enabling functional imaging to improve disease diagnosis and monitoring.