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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{Thompson:2017:10.1038/nrgastro.2017.147,
author = {Thompson, AJ and Hughes, M and Anastasova, S and Conklin, LS and Thomas, T and Leggett, C and Faubion, WA and Miller, TJ and Delaney, P and Lacombe, F and Loiseau, S and Meining, A and Richards-Kortum, R and Tearney, GJ and Kelly, P and Yang, G-Z},
doi = {10.1038/nrgastro.2017.147},
journal = {Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology},
pages = {727--738},
title = {The potential role of optical biopsy in the study and diagnosis of environmental enteric dysfunction},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2017.147},
volume = {14},
year = {2017}
}

Download

RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) is a disease of the small intestine affecting children and adults in low and middle income countries. Arising as a consequence of repeated infections, gut inflammation results in impaired intestinal absorptive and barrier function, leading to poor nutrient uptake and ultimately to stunting and other developmental limitations. Progress towards new biomarkers and interventions for EED is hampered by the practical and ethical difficulties of cross-validation with the gold standard of biopsy and histology. Optical biopsy techniques — which can provide minimally invasive or noninvasive alternatives to biopsy — could offer other routes to validation and could potentially be used as point-of-care tests among the general population. This Consensus Statement identifies and reviews the most promising candidate optical biopsy technologies for applications in EED, critically assesses them against criteria identified for successful deployment in developing world settings, and proposes further lines of enquiry. Importantly, many of the techniques discussed could also be adapted to monitor the impaired intestinal barrier in other settings such as IBD, autoimmune enteropathies, coeliac disease, graft-versus-host disease, small intestinal transplantation or critical care.
AU  - Thompson,AJ
AU  - Hughes,M
AU  - Anastasova,S
AU  - Conklin,LS
AU  - Thomas,T
AU  - Leggett,C
AU  - Faubion,WA
AU  - Miller,TJ
AU  - Delaney,P
AU  - Lacombe,F
AU  - Loiseau,S
AU  - Meining,A
AU  - Richards-Kortum,R
AU  - Tearney,GJ
AU  - Kelly,P
AU  - Yang,G-Z
DO  - 10.1038/nrgastro.2017.147
EP  - 738
PY  - 2017///
SN  - 1759-5045
SP  - 727
TI  - The potential role of optical biopsy in the study and diagnosis of environmental enteric dysfunction
T2  - Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2017.147
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/54630
VL  - 14
ER  -