Research Overview: Optical technologies that rely on the tissues’ natural “glow” to enable precision disease detection and therapy

The Georgakoudi lab focuses on the development and application of label-free optical technologies that have the potential to transform the diagnosis and treatment monitoring of human diseases. Label-free methods rely on endogenous sources of contrast, obviating the need for exogenous dyes and facilitating translation from the lab to the clinic. The three pillars of the studies we pursue include development of translational non-invasive, label-free optical technologies, image analysis approaches (including machine learning/deep learning-focused ones) that enable quantitative, automated assessments of morphofunctional tissue metrics, and fundamental studies that validate the methods or provide a deeper understanding of the underlying pathophysiology of the diseases of interest. The two latter components are critical to informing and optimizing translation. Conversely, translation of the tools we develop to in vivo human studies in the context of morphofunctional tissue assessments, and not simply optimized classification, will offer unprecedented insights on the fundamentals of disease pathophysiology. We pursue applications in cancer, aging, osteoarthritis, metabolic, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases.