Abstract:
As engineers, we are constantly seeking to improve the world around us with effective and clever solutions to our chosen problems. Healthcare is an essential aspect of our lives, though with patient safety, positive clinical outcomes, and cost-efficiency as paramount. These sometimes opposing aims can be unified through patient- and outcomes-focused clinical translational research to reimagine and advance the standard of care.

This talk will discuss the application of real-time, label-free, noninvasive optical or biophotonics-based diagnostic approaches, like optical coherence tomography and nonlinear imaging, to capture patient-specific assessment of ‘the state of the tissue’ - structure and function under normal and diseased conditions. Using these diagnostic tools as part of a control or feedback loop, the therapeutic parameter space (frequency, dose strength, interval, etc.) for emerging treatment approaches can be observed and optimized.

Several examples to improve health outcomes through development and application of this combined assessment and therapeutic pipeline will be presented. In neuromodulation, there is a need to assess device safety and efficacy to meet regulatory performance metrics. For surgical technology, reducing cancer re-excision rates can benefit from real-time identification of tissue margins. In middle ear disease, the diagnostic standard can be improved to ensure standard of care treatments are delivered as accurately as possible. Looking towards the future, the assessment and treatment of otitis media and other diseases can be transformed by developing plasma medicine and other emerging therapeutic approaches to reduce pathogenic load and cure disease without using antibiotics.