Presenting on “Staining-free optical imaging techniques toward digital histopathology"

Woonggyu Jung, PhD, Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), will speak at 10:00 am CST on Friday, August 4, 2023 in Whitaker 218.

Abstract: The histological optical imaging is a gold standard method to observe the biological tissues, which follows routine process such as dissection, embedding, sectioning, staining, visualization and interpretation of specimens. This technique has a long history of development, and is used ubiquitously in pathology, despite being highly time and labour-intensive. Advanced optical imaging techniques developed over the last decade have enabled to provide high sensitivity, high resolution and non-invasive biological information. In particular, new optical imaging contrast rather than chemical staining has been presented to be utilized in histopathology while showing the stong potential. However, acquiring high throughput, large volume tissue anatomy remains a difficult challenge due to the effect of light scattering, which limits the penetration imaging depth and lateral resolution. Recently, various optical imaging methods have been introduced to create volumetric anatomy data of ex vivo tissues using physical tissue sectioning or optical clearing.   

Here, we introduce novel staining-free and multi-scale imaging modality based on scattering and phase contrast. Optical staining in histopathology could be key technique to build fast feedback of anatomy of tissues or organs due to its simplicity, efficiency, robustness, and high-throughput capabilities. This presentation covers the latest work of large-scale and fast tissue imaging using optical coherence microscopy, quantitative phase imaging and projection tomography. Specifically, the talk will highlight comparison study over the conventional method in histopahology and its adaptation with artificial intelligence such as the virtual staining and resolution enhancement.

Host: Prof. Chao Zhou, Washington University in St. Louis