Development of a multimodal microscope for enhanced clinical diagnoses

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The past two decades have witnessed the emergence of a wide array of optical imaging modalities used in biology and medicine for observing tissues at the architectural (e.g. optical tomography techniques), cellular (e.g. confocal microscopy) or molecular (e.g. spectroscopy) levels. Confocal microscopy used in conjunction with fluorescent dyes, nano-particles and quantum dots has permitted the elucidation of many fundamental biological pathways. However in the clinical world, optical imaging is limited to natural contrast mechanisms as very few contrast agents are approved for use in human. Despite this constraint, confocal endoscopy has already made tremendous progress allowing in vivo cellular visualization of internal organs such as the colon, cervix and vocal folds. Additional contrast could be achieved by combining reflectance techniques with altered signals coming from molecules such as elastin and collagen, which are naturally abundant in human tissues.