Research
Our lab consists of a number of multi- and cross-disciplinary projects working on the development of physical and computational sciences as applied to medical imaging. Our research ranges from development of diffuse optical techniques to computational tools assisting image-guided interventions.
Research Areas
Optical Instrumentation
Despite having access to several commercial diffuse optical devices, we actively develop purpose-driven optical technology to tackle research problems. Our lab focuses on developing systems such as devices for diffuse optical tomography (DOT), fluorescence imaging, and diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS).
Light Transport in Biological Tissue
We work on analytical and numerical models for studying light propagation in turbid media such as biological tissue. Part of our work is freely available, such as the FEM-based NIRFAST software for photon forward modelling.
Functional Neuroimaging Analysis
A large part of our work develops better and more general ways to rationalize data from functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). We study biases in the fNIRS signal, build associative and causal statistical models for brain connectivity analysis, and apply topological approaches to understand brain function and integration.Current Research Projects
- mTBI-Predict: Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Biomarker Study A prospective cohort biomarker study of military and civilian participants with mTBI.
- BioSMART: BIOreactor Spatial Mapping and Actuation in Real Time Developing optical monitoring methods for bioreactor characterisation.
- Live monitoring of foreign-body response in animals by diffuse Raman spectroscopy
- Next Generation Deep Tissue Quantitative Optical Imaging
Collaborations & Funding
Our research is supported by funding from EPSRC, BBSRC, NIH, and other national and international agencies. We maintain active collaborations with researchers across the UK, Europe, Canada, and the United States.