Cell by cell in focus
Source: www.biophotonics.world Author: Sven Döring Progress can be measured in two steps in Tobias Meyer's laser laboratory and can be seen at a glance. In the background is a silver trolley, on top of it two black boxes and a monitor. The matt black compact device on the optical table in front of it is not even a fourth of it in site. Two Medicars, version 2015 and version 2019: a compact microscope for rapid cancer diagnosis during surgery. "Good news from German cancer research" was the announcement by the German government in August 2019, referring to the "precision through laser light" with which the microscope researched at Leibniz IPHT makes cancerous tissue visible, enabling surgeons to remove tumors even more precisely in the future. The black box contains a light-based tool that can be used to examine the chemical and morphological composition of the tissue. This information is evaluated with artificial intelligence and immediately indicates whether the tumor has been completely removed – in other words, whether the operation was successful. Tobias Meyer and his team from Leibniz IPHT, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena University Hospital and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering are already continuing their research. They are combining the imaging procedure with a minimally invasive surgical precision tool: for laser-based microsurgery – and a new way to treat cancer in a gentle way. "Our vision," as Scientific Director Jürgen Popp describes it, "is to use light not only to identify the tumor, but [...]