Rebekah A. Drezek, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Bioengineering
Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Rice University

Point-of-Care Optical Technologies for Early Cancer Detection: Advances in Instrumentation and Nano-engineered Imaging Agents

Our laboratory conducts interdisciplinary research at the interface of biology, medicine, and engineering towards the development of novel optical imaging technologies to detect, diagnose, and monitor disease processes (particularly cancer) at the cellular and molecular levels in vivo. In current medical practice, a final diagnosis of cancer or a precancerous condition is achieved only after histopathologic analysis of directed biopsies. Biopsies are painful and invasive to the patient. Moreover, many of the complex changes in cellular biochemistry and morphology that accompany the earliest stages of a disease process are not detectable through routine microscopic examination. Emerging photonics technologies provide the exciting opportunity to capitalize on subtle biophysical changes in tissue to provide quantitative, real-time, minimally invasive detection, diagnosis, and monitoring of disease. In this presentation, I will describe our past, present, and future research aimed at the development and clinical translation of optical imaging tools to improve women's health care. Development of nanoengineered, molecular specific imaging agents will be an area of particular emphasis in the talk.
 
Thursday, September 7, 2006
3:00 p.m. - Duncan Hall 3092
Rice University



ECE Affiliates Meeting



Last modified: July 26, 2006