The candidate has worked in the optoelectronics field before changing her field of study to breast cancer optical tomography. The long-term career goal of the candidate is to be an independent researcher who has a unique set of knowledge and breadth of experience in both the Optoelectronics and biomedical fields, and can work to develop new tools for diagnostic medical applications. The immediate goal of the candidate is to develop a Near-Infrared (NIR) tomography system to have capabilities of rapidly imaging both long-term and short-term changes within the breast of total hemoglobin (HbT), oxygen saturation (StO2), water concentration, scattering power (SP) and scattering amplitude (SA). Furthermore, to establish a procedure of dynamic pressure-enhanced near-infrared breast cancer imaging by such a system. Dartmouth College has significant resources in the field of medical and engineering graduate education. Norris Cotton Cancer Center at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center has been ranked as one of the 50 best treatment and research centers in the country. In this excellent environment, the candidate's research career will be developed by (i) taking courses in medical engineering, tissue biochemistry and biostatistics, (ii) taking part in related events, lectures, (iii) attending group meetings at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, (iv) presenting research results at the most pertinent academic medical conferences, and (v) attending clinical evaluation and planning meetings. The research project of the candidate is to develop a dynamic pressure-enhanced NIR breast cancer imaging system with an optimized human protocol. NIR multi-spectral imaging is a unique tool for characterization of tissue composition changes in the female breast by providing images of HbT, StO2, water concentration, SP and SA. Measurement of the differences between long term and short term responses of breast tissue under different applied pressures has the capability of enhancing the contrast and resolution of breast cancer detection. This will provide a unique system for optical-elastic imaging of tissue. The overall goal of this proposal is to establish a vivo optical-elastic enhanced breast cancer detection technique to improve the contrast and resolution of breast cancer characterization. We hypothesize that normal breast tissue will deform and have strong dynamic and plastic deformation responses, whereas tumor tissue will have a lower dynamic and plastic response in comparison. The research will be carried out by 1) improving the current NIR multi-spectral system to have capabilities of imaging both long-term and short-term changes within the breast of HbT, StO2 ,water concentration, SP and SA; 2) using the improved NIR system to understand vivo long-term and short-term pressure responses of HbT, StO2, water concentration, SP and SA with respect to the breast tissue composition; and 3) to establish procedures and obtain initial data as to the optimal conditions for maximal contrast and resolution in this dynamic approach to breast cancer imaging.
