Glass Processor for the Fabrication of Novel Fiber-Optic Components and Biomedical Catheters

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The detection of cancer in the lung, gastrointestinal tract and other body cavities often require very small catheters to navigate the small pathways involved. The applicants develop tools and devices that employ optical fibers for the early detection of cancer. These tools allow physicians to visualize tissue and tissue components in distant regions of the body such as the very periphery of the lung where cancer is most often found. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a new imaging technique that can be used to study these high-risk tissue sites at high resolution without removing tissue (no biopsy required). OCT is the optical equivalent of ultrasound - it uses light waves instead of sound waves to build a high-resolution map of structures below the tissue surface. We are requesting funds to purchase a Glass Processing System to fabricate the very small optical catheters that are required for this work. This piece of equipment would be shared between the three institutions participating in this application, namely the British Columbia Cancer Research Center (BCCRC), the University of British Columbia (UBC), and Simon Fraser University (SFU). The Glass Processing System would allow researchers to fabricate fiber optical catheters as small as 125um in diameter - about the size of a human hair.