Schools eye optical research

The University of Texas system in North Texas came together Aug. 29 to recognize a three-way collaboration between institutions to do translational research in the realm of optical medical imaging.

UT-Arlington, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and UT-Dallas representatives celebrated the ribbon-cutting of the new UT-Arlington Optical Medical Imaging Lab, which is in the Clements Medical Imaging Center on the UT Southwestern campus.

Optical medical imaging is opening new doors for health care professionals. Researchers are looking at ways to use light to diagnose and track disease and cell functions, and the techniques are usually noninvasive and have no side effects, because they rely on light rather than radiation or other potentially harmful procedures.

The new lab brings together the research and engineering background of people at UT-Arlington with the health care needs and experience from those at UT Southwestern.  UT-Dallas faculty members will also join in collaborative projects.

The partnership between UT-Arlington and UT Southwestern dates back to the 1970s, when a joint biomedical engineering program was initiated, said Bill Carroll, dean of the College of Engineering at UT-Arlington.

“UT-Arlington and UT Southwestern were pioneers,” he said.

That joint program now has more than 170 graduate and doctorate students enrolled, Carroll said, and is an example of how joint efforts can grow substantially as science and health demands evolve.

About five years ago, the two schools came together to discuss possible space in Dallas for optical imaging, said Jim Spaniolo, president of UT-Arlington. Spaniolo was in his first week on the job as president, he said.

“It was not close to completion at that point,” he said.

The grand opening was also attended by Dr. Kern Wildenthal, president of UT Southwestern. It was one of his last official acts as president before he retired; Wildenthal was president of the school since 1986, and Dr. Daniel Podolsky took over the post Sept. 2. Wildenthal said if the school had considered creating a comparable center for itself, “it wouldn’t have been worth doing,” because it needs varied input to develop technology to meet a larger patient population.

The new center is funded through a Congressional appropriation of $3.1 million as well as an equal amount coming from peer-reviewed grants and competitive awards, said Ron Elsenbaumer, vice president for research and federal relations at UT-Arlington.

Five engineering professors from UT-Arlington will be in four labs in the center; Kambiz Alavi, Karel Zuzak, George Alexandrakis, Hanli Liu and Digant Davé are bioengineering and electrical engineering professors from the university.

Zuzak, an assistant professor of bioengineering, is working with Alavi to perfect an imager that uses digital light processing technology, developed by Texas Instruments. DLP technology, found in some high-definition televisions, uses microscopic mirrors to control light.

The imager Zuzak is working on is the only one in the world that uses DLP technology to look at the chemical composition of materials. By shining different spectrums of light onto a subject — like someone’s hand, or into a surgical field — and then interpreting the light that is altered and reflected, scientists can determine how the tissue is different.

“We’re doing an optical biopsy,” said Zuzak. Since the light comes back and is interpreted at almost video-rate, the technology would be appropriate in fast-paced fields like surgery, where a physician could gauge how well tissue is holding up to strain, he said.

“We’re expecting to see this in every clinic,” he said.

There are companies that make similar imaging technology, Zuzak said, but the almost-live monitoring abilities and the association with Texas Instruments and DLP technology make his imaging set up unique.

Other areas of research could impact various aspects of medicine. Liu is focusing on noninvasive, near infrared instruments to better diagnosis, treat and monitor tumors in patients as well as surgical tools to give better images to surgeons during laparoscopic procedures, or “keyhole” surgeries. Davé is looking at using nanotags that can be used in patients to look for multiple cancer-related biomarkers at once, developing a multifunctional image-guided surgical platform, and tools for neuroscience fields. Alexandrakis is researching microscopy techniques to examine how DNA strands repair themselves, developing techniques to track molecules within cells, and working on projects including optical tomographic imaging of tissues.

Bringing together the minds of some of North Texas’ best research universities will one day have an effect on patients in the area as well as nationally, researchers said. But for now, the focus is on getting technology “from the bench to the bedside,” Zuzak said.