Sources of Optical Contrast in Breast Cancer
- pdf version of the abstract

Abstract
Dr. Ramanujam's research activities are centered around the development of novel optical spectroscopic and imaging modalities for diagnostic applications in medicine. Optical techniques can provide both functional and structural information about the tissue. Furthermore, the optical method is fast and non-invasive. These techniques can be potentially be used for the detection of a variety of clinical problems, including pre-cancer and cancer detection, tissue oximetry and glucose monitoring.

One of the main areas of focus in Dr. Ramanujam's research program is to incorporate optical sensors to improve the accuracy of current needle biopsy methods for breast cancer. Some of the questions that are currently being addressed in the lab include: (1) What are the optimal optical techniques for breast cancer detection, (2) how well can the optical method differentiate between cancer and tissue that is non-cancerous, (3) can the optical method detect the earliest pre-cancerous lesions of the breast, (4) what are the sources of contrast and their biological bases, and (5) how can this technology be implemented in a practical clinical setting.

Biography
Dr. Ramanujam got her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas in 1995 in the field of optical diagnosis of cervical cancer. She conduced post-doctoral training at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics a the University of Pennsylvania in the laboratory of Britton Chance where she worked on diffuse photon imaging and low cost optical scanning instruments for tissue diagnosis. Since 1999 she is assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin. In 2003 she has been nominated as one of the top 100 young innovators in technology in the world by MIT's Technology Review Magazine.