We are happy to welcome Fay Wang to the Biophotonics and Optical Radiology Lab. Fay graduated from Boston University in May 2019, and she will be part of the biomedical engineering Masters-Ph.D. program as a Presidential Fellow. Excited to have you for the next years!
Congratulations on the successful defense of doctoral dissertation "Flexible optical imaging systems for diffuse optical spectroscopy and tomography in medical diagnosis and treatment monitoring".
A delegation of 4 professors from Columbia’s engineering, including Dr. Hielscher, and medical schools attended a symposium on “Challenges and Opportunities in Diagnosing, Monitoring, and Treating Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) and Diabetic Foot Syndrome”, and visited the Jordan University of Technology and Science (JUST) and its affiliated King Abdullah University Hospital (KAUH).
Professor Hielscher and Professor Kymissis, associate professor of electrical engineering, were chosen for their proposal: “Wearable Optical Brassiere for Breast Cancer Therapy Monitoring.” The overall goal of this proposal is to develop a brassiere that contains source and detectors for monitoring the effects of breast cancer treatment during neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The project, which also received Blavatnik Acceleration Fund support, builds on expertise and previous efforts in the Hielscher and Kymissis laboratories. Their team also includes Dr. Dawn Hershman from Columbia’s Departments of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology, and Prof. Theanne Spiros, assistant professor at New York Fashion Institute of Technology.
Dr. Hielscher and Dr. Bajakian were one of the winner of 2018 President’s Global Innovation Fund (PGIF) which provides support to Columbia Faculty who utilize the nine Global Centers as a resource for teaching and research activities. The project extend a current clinical study performed at CUIMC, which explores a novel optical technology for assessing the vasculature in PAD patients, to include 2 hospitals in Jordan. The Columbia team will build two imaging systems that will be transferred to JUST, where an engineering team will collaborate with physicians at KAUH and the Jordon University Hospital to perform a study involving at least 50 patients.
Dr. Hielscher and Dr. Bajakian won the President’s Global Innovation Fund (PGIF) which provides support to Columbia Faculty who utilize the nine Global Centers as a resource for teaching and research activities. The project extend a current clinical study performed at CUIMC, which explores a novel optical technology for assessing the vasculature in PAD patients, to include 2 hospitals in Jordan. The Columbia team will build two imaging systems that will be transferred to JUST, where an engineering team will collaborate with physicians at KAUH and the Jordon University Hospital to perform a study involving at least 50 patients. The additional patient data will strengthen new NIH proposals to be jointly submitted. Furthermore, by having data from a Mideast population, follow up funding could be pursued from the Ministries of Health in Jordan and other Mideastern funding agencies in Qatar, the UAE, and Egypt.
Rivka and Merrill Weber (Israel) and Andreas Hielscher (NY, USA), winners of the first X-Challenge competition, presented VOTIS at Boston Scientific offices in Minneapolis, USA on July 25, 2017. VOTIS is a device based on Vascular Optical Tomographic Imaging technology which is non-invasive and non-radiating ion-based. It is intended to enable early screening for Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) even for people with Diabetes who have challenges diagnosing and monitoring their PAD with conventional devices. VOTIS is currently being evaluated for possible inclusion into the MEDX incubator.