Condensed Matter Physics Seminar

Photon mayhem: using light to image fine structural and functional details inside the human body

Alex Vitkin
University of Toronto - Medical Biophysics

Time
Wed. November 29, 2006     10:30 AM     Stirling 501

Abstract

Advances in optical technologies have spurred many new applications of light in biology and medicine. The expanding fields of optical diagnostics and therapeutics include such diverse topics as photodynamic therapy for cancers and other diseases, fluorescence endoscopy for early tumor detection, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) for tissue assessment. OCT is a new medical imaging modality in which the coherent interference of a wide spectrum light source is used to create a high resolution (micron-scale) subsurface image of tissue structure. From the phase shift produced by a moving target, OCT can also image dynamic phenomena such as blood flow in real time. In this talk I will explain how OCT works and discuss its applications in medicine, with examples drawn from our own work.

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