Advancing optics and electronics of endoscopy and endomicroscopy

Throughout the history of microscopy, the endeavour has been to see smaller and smaller features. The key challenge in biology has been to observe this in vivo as this provides a dynamic view into living phenomena. An even bigger challenge to observe cellular and sub-cellular events as-they-happen in a living human body.

We work to build tools which will transform our understanding of disease by deploying and developing devices which will see cellular events in the clinic and at low cost.

The PhD student will design new instrumentation, software and endomicroscopy probes (e.g. fibre-bundle or chip-on-tip based) to enhance the spatial resolution of existing ones while ensuring in vivo clinical option is maintained. The technology for human in vivo cell imaging at sub-micron resolutions inside patients is not available. The student helped by the supervisory team will break this deadlock from technical perspective opening new opportunities for follow-up clinical studies.

Student will have at disposal a clinically approved and custom endomicroscopy instrument [1,2]. There will be opportunities for students to collaborate with clinicians beyond NHS Tayside and also exploit the facilities in the Division for Imaging and Technology, University of Dundee as well as collaborate with teams from the EPSRC IRC Proteus project at the Universities of Edinburgh, Durham, Bath and Heriot-Watt.

References

1. N. Krstajic, B. Mills, I. Murray, A. Marshall, Norberg, Dominic, T. H. Craven, P. Emanuel, T. R. Choudhary, G. C. O. Williams, E. Scholefield, A. R. Akram, A. Davie, N. Hirani, A. Bruce, A. Moore, M. Bradley, and K. Dhaliwal, "Low-Cost High Sensitivity Pulsed Endomicroscopy to Visualize Tri-Colour Optical Signatures," Journal of Biomedical Optics, 23, (2018).
2. N. Krstajic, A. R. Akram, T. R. Choudhary, N. McDonald, M. G. Tanner, E. Pedretti, P. A. Dalgarno, E. Scholefield, J. M. Girkin, A. Moore, M. Bradley, and K. Dhaliwal, "Two-colour widefield fluorescence microendoscopy enables multiplexed molecular imaging in the alveolar space of human lung tissue," Journal of Biomedical Optics 21, (2016).

Diversity statement

Our research community thrives on the diversity of students and staff which helps to make the University of Dundee a UK university of choice for postgraduate research.  We welcome applications from all talented individuals and are committed to widening access to those who have the ability and potential to benefit from higher education.