Battles Still Rage at Megiddo

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Tomorrow's Diagnosis?

Sprites and Elves in the Heavens

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TAU Research Briefs

Tomorrow's Diagnosis? Simple, Cheap and Noninvasive

TAU researchers are investigating a new, minimally invasive optical method to diagnose and monitor diseases in real time. This multidisciplinary group involves Dr. I. Gannot from the Faculty of Engineering, Prof. A. Buchner and Dr. G. Gannot from the TAU Dental School, and Prof. Y. Keisari from the TAU Medical School. They hypothesize that the progress of many diseases is accompanied by an infiltration of cells to the diseased area. These cells could be tagged with specific antibodies conjugated to fluorescent markers. Laser excitation of the tagging molecules could yield fluorescent signals, which could be collected by an imaging fiberoptic bundle and collected by a sensitive fluorescence camera. The system and subsequent analysis could all be controlled by computer. The analysis would use a theoretical model of photon migration in turbid media. The new TAU method would be effective for depths of a few millimeters under the tissue surface and could produce images of many internal tissues using an endoscope. This diagnostic method should be quite general, and could permit continuous, simple, low-cost bedside monitoring.