Marcu Lab Research Is Laser Focus World Magazine Cover Story
The UC Davis Marcu Lab's cutting-edge biophotonics research is the cover story of the latest issue of Laser Focus World magazine.
The magazine article highlights how researchers' work on using label-free time-resolved "lifetime" fluorescence spectroscopy and imaging has demonstrated capability for multiple clinical applications, as evidenced by a new surgery study in humans involving Intuitive Surgical's robotic da Vinci Surgical System:
"Working with Laura Marcu, Ph.D., of the University of California, Davis, a pioneering researcher in the field of time-resolved fluorescence, Intuitive Surgical recently undertook the first-in-human study involving integration of autofluorescence in robotic surgery. The work studied the use of time-resolved tissue diagnostics for real-time surgical guidance.
"Based on previous work by the Marcu lab on scanning multispectral time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy (ms-TRFS) and in collaboration with Dr. Gregory Farwell of the UC Davis School of Medicine, the group integrated an ms-TRFS subsystem into the da Vinci system using a customized fiber-optic probe. They evaluated the system's ability to complement visual inspection in vivo, first in swine models and then in human subjects with oral cancer undergoing transoral robotic surgery.
"This work demonstrated for the first time continuous real-time visualization of areas interrogated by a fiber-optic probe and streamed to a surgeon, and the ability to generate diagnostic contrast based on autofluorescence properties."