Text and Photos by Sam Wong
To listen to the audio interview, navigate to the Research and Development archive here.
As a volunteer with the Met Radio R&D show, I recently had the opportunity to interview TMU Graduate Student Alex D’Ippolito and to tour his research laboratory. He has been working on a tiny endoscope: smaller than 200 microns wide! (That’s smaller than 0.2 millimetres. This can be visualized as similar to the tiny 34-gauge needle.) The goal of his project is to improve the cancer biopsy process: to make it less painful and more accurate. Currently, the tissue biopsies are done with a 14-gauge needle.
His research lab is part of Dr. A. Douplik’s Photonics Research Group, and is located at St. Michael’s Hospital. The smaller diameter needle is only part of his project. The creation of a tri-modal confocal microscope was also needed to examine the tissues.
The tri-modal microscope uses three methods of looking at the tissue biopsy. The three methods form the acronym: W.A.R. where W stands for normal White light to see the tissue structures; where A stands for Auto-fluorescence because they are using ultraviolet light to force tissue fluorescence to see if the tissue sample contains any cancerous areas; and where R stands for Raman Spectroscopy, an advanced imaging technique using laser light followed by the detection of scattered wavelengths to determine the tissue’s molecular structure.
With his research, Alex hopes to have biopsy techniques done with needles smaller than 34-gauge. I don’t know about you, but I would choose the smaller needle!
To learn more about his research, tune into Met Radio’s Research & Development show on 1280AM, or on-line at MetRadio.ca
