Periodic Reporting for period 1 - REAP (Revealing drug tolerant persister cells in cancer using contrast enhanced optical coherence and photoacoustic tomography)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-01-01 al 2022-06-30
• Administrative matters
• Dissemination, exploitation, and communication activities
• Biology and chemistry related tasks
• Laser development
• Sensor development
• System integration
• Contrast agent: biofunctionalized contrast agent will be developed to target the breast cancer cells. The contrast agent will feature tunable absorption peaks specifically designed to enhance the contrast in photoacoustic imaging (PAI).
• Photoacoustic Detector: micro-ring resonator (MRR) based detector with ≤50 μm diameter and ≥160 MHz bandwidth will be developed. Together with the interrogation laser developed in this project, we target at sub-Pa noise equivalent pressure (NEP). MRR arrays will also be developed for real time PAT imaging.
• Laser: triple wavelength photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) excitation laser will be developed with high repetition rate (100 kHz), high energy (1 μJ), low cost (5 k€), and compact size (15 × 15 × 5 cm3). An optical parametric oscillator (OPO) will be developed for PAT excitation with exceptionally high repetition rate (≥ 1 kHz) and energy (≥ 10 mJ). Two dual-purpose lasers will be developed for both all optical detection photoacoustic interrogation and optical coherence tomography (OCT) at 780 nm and 1310 nm with wide bandwidth (40 nm and 100 nm, respectively), narrow linewidth and stable phase.
• System: horizontal 2PLS-OC-PAM system will be developed with subcellular resolution, deep penetration (≥1 mm from one side and ≥2 mm with sample rotation), multiple contrast channels (fluorescence contrast for two- photon laser scanning microscopy (2PLSM), scattering contrast for OCT, absorption contrast for PAM), and fast imaging speed. A high-resolution OC-PAT system will be developed using planar MRR array for localized tumor imaging and image-guided biopsy. A rectangular-MRR-array-based photoacoustic tomography (PAT) system will be developed for deep tissue (≥2 cm penetration depth) imaging and metastasis screening.
• Algorithm: real time image reconstruction algorithms will be developed for all the imaging modalities involved. Needle tracing algorithm will be developed for image-guided biopsy. 3D visualization and quantification algorithms will be developed to perform quantitative analysis of the tumor and the DTP cells.