Photoacoustic scanner for quantitative small animal imaging

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With the NSERC Discovery funds to Dr. Jeffrey Carson, an Imaging Scientist at the Lawson Health Research Institute (Lawson) and an Assistant Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Western Ontario (UWO), it will be possible for his laboratory to develop a photoacoustic scanner for small animal imaging research.  Photoacoustic imaging is a non-destructive technique that uses laser light to visualize internal organs and blood vessels with great clarity. Traditional laser imaging methods are sensitive to a physical process called optical scatter, which degrades the ability to visualize internal features below the surface of the skin.  Photoacoustic imaging is insensitive to the degrading effects of optical scatter and results in high-resolution images.  The technique uses brief, but intense pulses of laser light to cause sound emission from internal features.  The sound is then detected outside the animal using an array of ultrasound transducers.  Dr. Carson and his students are building a photoacoustic scanner.  They plan to use the scanner to study methods to improve the clarity, quality, and meaning of photoacoustic images.  They will determine if laser pulses of near infrared light, which penetrate deep into the animal, can help the photoacoustic scanner see features a centimetre of more below the surface of the skin.  They will examine if increasing the number of transducers can reduce the time to acquire an image.  Finally, they will vary the output wavelength (i.e. colour) of the laser to establish if photoacoustic imaging can identify the chemical make-up of animal tissue.  At first, the testing will be on inanimate objects and then extended to live animals such as laboratory mice under anaesthetic.  The research will result in a photoacoustic scanner that is capable of non-destructive imaging of the internal organs and blood vessels of small animals.  The research will lead to technological improvements that permit the acquisition of higher quality images at a faster rate compared to scanners elsewhere.  The photoacoustic scanner will represent a unique facility at the Lawson and UWO and probably the only one of its kind in Canada.