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Clinical Photonics

We use light to develop advanced diagnostic tools, wearable sensors, and microscale robots for studying diseases and enabling minimally invasive treatments.

Head of Group

Dr Alex Thompson

Office B411, Bessemer Building,
South Kensington Campus

⇒ X @_Thompson_Alex

What we do

We use photonics to develop new technologies for medicine and to study the pathophysiology of disease. This includes new and improved diagnostic tools as well as microscale robotic devices for therapeutic applications. We use a variety of optical techniques for this purpose such as fluorescence, Raman and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, as well as microscopy and interferometry. We develop devices ranging from wearable sensors and fibre-optic probes for minimally invasive diagnostics through to microscale robots for cellular-scale manipulation and therapy.

Why it is important?

Our research has a number of potential clinical applications including improved monitoring of clinical therapies and interventions (e.g. in inflammatory bowel disease and malnutrition), early diagnosis of infection, and even margin mapping in tumour resection surgery.

How can it benefit patients?

The devices we are developing can potentially provide less invasive and lower cost diagnostics. In turn, this may facilitate patient benefits including earlier diagnosis, earlier identification of relapse (e.g. in therapy response monitoring applications), more widespread deployment and more comfortable patient experiences (e.g. through use of less invasive probes and sensors).

Meet the team

Dr Belal Ahmad
Imperial College Research Fellow

Dr Qian Chen
Clinical Research Fellow

Dr Ahmed Ezzat
Research Postgraduate

Dr Nilanjan Mandal
Research Associate in Optical Sensing for LMICs

Dr Alexander J Thompson
Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sensing

Mr Zeyu Wang
Research Postgraduate

Citation

BibTex format

@article{DeLorey:2023:10.1002/tbio.202200015,
author = {DeLorey, C and Davids, JD and Cartucho, J and Xu, C and Roddan, A and Nimer, A and Ashrafian, H and Darzi, A and Thompson, AJ and Akhond, S and Runciman, M and Mylonas, G and Giannarou, S and Avery, J},
doi = {10.1002/tbio.202200015},
journal = {Translational Biophotonics},
title = {A cabledriven soft robotic endeffector actuator for probebased confocal laser endomicroscopy: Development and preclinical validation},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tbio.202200015},
volume = {5},
year = {2023}
}

Download

RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Soft robotics is becoming a popular choice for end-effectors. An end-effector was designed that has various advantages including ease of manufacturing, simplicity and control. This device may have the advantage of enabling probe-based devices to intraoperatively measure cancer histology, because it can flexibly and gently position a probe perpendicularly over an area of delicate tissue. This is demonstrated in a neurosurgical setting where accurate cancer resection has been limited by lack of accurate visualisation and impaired tumour margin delineation with the need for in-situ histology. Conventional surgical robotic end-effectors are unsuitable to accommodate a probe-based confocal laser endomicroscopy (p-CLE) probe because of their rigid and non-deformable properties, which can damage the thin probe. We have therefore designed a new soft robotic platform, which is advantageous by conforming to the probe's shape to avoid damage and to facilitate precision scanning.
AU  - DeLorey,C
AU  - Davids,JD
AU  - Cartucho,J
AU  - Xu,C
AU  - Roddan,A
AU  - Nimer,A
AU  - Ashrafian,H
AU  - Darzi,A
AU  - Thompson,AJ
AU  - Akhond,S
AU  - Runciman,M
AU  - Mylonas,G
AU  - Giannarou,S
AU  - Avery,J
DO  - 10.1002/tbio.202200015
PY  - 2023///
SN  - 2627-1850
TI  - A cabledriven soft robotic endeffector actuator for probebased confocal laser endomicroscopy: Development and preclinical validation
T2  - Translational Biophotonics
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tbio.202200015
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/112183
VL  - 5
ER  -