OT- SpectroscopyNOW- Reflecting on the prostate: Cancer margins

http://www.spectroscopynow.com/uv/details/highlight/14de3346bad/Last-Months-Most-Accessed-Feature-Reflecting-on-the-prostate-Cancer-margins.html

Reflecting on prostate cancer

Light reflectance spectroscopy, which measure backscattered light, can be used to differentiate between malignant and benign prostatic tissue with 85 percent accuracy, according to US researchers. The finding might be used in real-time tissue analysis to guide the surgeon during prostate cancer.

Urologist Jeffrey Cadeddu of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and colleagues, Aaron Lay, Payal Kapur and Claus Roehrborn, explain that the surgical removal of all cancerous tissue and the sparing of the surrounding healthy tissue during a prostatectomy is not always a completely successful procedure. The removal of healthy tissue can cause problems but leaving behind malignant cells can lead to the recurrence of the prostate cancer.

A real-time approach to guide the surgeon's knife more precisely than ever before could improve the outcome for thousands of men undergoing treatment each year. Radical surgery to remove the prostate gland is often called for, but traditional techniques to assess how much surrounding tissue needs to be removed concurrently are time consuming and do not have proven clinical utility, although cutting too shallow can leave behind problematic cells, "positive surgical margins."

Minimal invasion

"We used a novel light reflectance spectroscopy probe to evaluate surgical margins on radical prostatectomy tissue specimens and correlated the findings with pathological examination," explains Cadeddu; he and his team published details in The Journal of Urology recently. Follow-up studies will be needed to confirm how well the spectroscopic technique might work in the operating theatre.

The team enrolled men with intermediate to high-risk disease requiring radical prostatectomy and examined the prostate tissue following removal with spectroscopic technique, focusing specifically on suspicious malignant and benign prostate margins. Each sample was analyzed and correlated with pathological samples, which were analysed after surgery. In total light reflectance spectroscopy was carried out on 17 prostate gland specimens of which 11 were proven positive histologically; 22 negative surgical margins were measured. The team found that their optical probe could predict positive surgical margins with 85 percent sensitivity, 86 percent specificity, and 86 percent accuracy.

Survival improver?

"This study highlights one of a growing number of technology platforms that aim to improve the outcomes of cancer surgery," explains Cadeddu, an expert in minimally invasive urological surgical techniques. "Further study is required to determine whether such analysis may be used in real time to improve surgical decision-making and decrease the amount of tissue surgeons need to remove."

Prostate cancer is the most common form of the disease in men, second only to skin cancer. It is the second biggest cancer killer in men after lung cancer with more than one in ten affected dying of the disease. "Our next step is to expand to more patients and develop a larger experience to further improve accuracy of technology," Cadeddu told SpectroscopyNOW. "Ultimately, we hope to see the technology commercialize

L.L. Raja Receives $1.4 M DoD Grant to Expand Plasma Technology

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Written by Monica Kortsha

http://www.ae.utexas.edu/news/features/757-plasma-dod-raja

Plasma, the fourth state of matter, is created when gaseous molecules are ripped apart into constitutive ions and electrons. Plasma is what makes lightning flash, and electric sparks fly. But it’s also what’s in fluorescent lights and buzzing neon signs.

“Even though it sounds exotic, plasmas are everywhere,” says Dr. Laxminarayan Raja, a plasma expert and researcher at UT’s ASE/EM Department. “Fluorescent lamps, neon signs, plasma TVs, even the sun is a plasma ball.”

Raja is working to expand plasma technology even further by helping design a new class of plasma-based materials that respond to terahertz (THz) waves, a largely untapped region of the electromagnetic spectrum with potential applications in imaging and sensor technology. His research is funded by a $1.4 million five year Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI)grant from the U.S. Department of Defense and is conducted in partnership with Stanford University, Tufts University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Washington and the University of California, Los Angeles. The total grant amount between all involved universities is over $7 million.

On the electromagnetic spectrum, THz waves are the midpoint between wavelengths primarily used for industrial purposes, such as microwaves, and those used for imaging purposes, such as infrared. This position endows THz waves with unique properties that are particularly useful for imaging and sensing. However, the position also puts THz waves out of range of typical electromagnetic wave generating, guiding and detecting equipment. This lack of technology even has a name: the “terahertz gap.” 

An illustration of an electromagnetic wave interacting with collimated plasma jets acting as a plasma-based metamaterial. The metamaterial transmits and reflects part of the wave energy and depending on the array geometry and density of individual plasma jets,  exotic properties such as a negative index of refraction can be realized. 

Raja and colleagues are working to address the gap by creating a new class of metamaterials and photonic crystals with integrated plasma elements that can be turned on and off on demand. When the plasma is on, it selectively interacts with terahertz spectrum of an electromagnetic wave. When it is off, no interaction occurs. These metamaterials and photonic crystals, which are constructed of repeating sub-millimeter sized metals and dielectrics elements, can serve to both produce the plasma while maximizing interactions with THz waves from an electromagnetic source.

It’s a novel application in plasma science, but at a general level, the plasma-containing materials are very similar in structure to the repeating rows of plasma-containing cells that make up a plasma television. However, the plasma Raja and colleagues are studying is significantly different from the kind that produces different colored pixels for a TV. It’s much more energetic – which raises the density of the plasma and prevents a THz wave from simply passing through – and the plasma must be contained in large arrays of the metamaterial or photonic crystal structure, with each element in the array being the size of a THz wavelength (less than one millimeter) or smaller so they can collectively manipulate the wave.

While researchers are working to create a metamaterials environment conducive to plasma/THz interaction, finding out what the interactions are and how they can be usefully harnessed is all part of the research, said Raja.

“The goal is to develop fundamental scientific understanding of all different aspects of these waves interacting with plasma metamaterials and plasma photonic crystals,” Raja said. “This understanding is crucial to the development of practical devices of commercial and military interest in the future.”

Raja’s main research focus at UT has been on realistically modeling plasma behavior in aerospace and related applications, such as using plasma-based thrusters to propel space vehicles. For this new research project, he’s transforming his simulation tools to predict how the plasma-based metamaterials and photonic crystals and THz waves will interact. The modeling is a key aspect of the research, enabling hypothesis and scenarios to be tested computationally to aid in the understanding of laboratory experiments conducted by collaborators.

“We have been developing simulation technology for the computational modeling of plasmas for over 10 years now at UT-Austin and all this experience will be brought to bear on the problem,” Raja said.

The research is just getting started, but by the end of the five year grant Raja says he hopes to have developed predictive simulations that can help guide the development of this new area of research, and lead to more information on how THz waves, an elusive part of the electromagnetic spectrum caught between well known ones, can be manipulated.

“We are certain that in the process of developing these tools we will have really pushed the state of the art in the computational modeling and simulations of this particular phenomena,” Raja said.

For more information on Raja's current research, visit his website.

New Research Could Mean Cellphones That Can See Through Walls

Team Finds New Possibilities in Untapped Terahertz Range With Implications For a Host of Devices

http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2012/4/18-17231_New-Research-Could-Mean-Cellphones-That-Can-See-Th_article-wide.htmlApr. 18, 2012

Dr. Kenneth O, director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence and a professor of electrical engineering, left, worked with a team including Dae Yeon Kim, who was among the authors of the research report.

Comic book hero superpowers may be one step closer to reality after the latest technological feats made by researchers at UT Dallas. They have designed an imager chip that could turn mobile phones into devices that can see through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects.

The team’s research linked two scientific advances. One involves tapping into an unused range in the electromagnetic spectrum. The other is a new microchip technology.

The electromagnetic spectrum characterizes wavelengths of energy. For example, radio waves for AM and FM signals, or microwaves used for cell phones or the infrared wavelength that makes night vision devices possible.

But the terahertz band of the electromagnetic spectrum, one of the wavelength ranges that falls between microwave and infrared, has not been accessible for most consumer devices.

“We’ve created approaches that open a previously untapped portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for consumer use and life-saving medical applications,” said Dr. Kenneth O, professor of electrical engineering at UT Dallas and director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence(TxACE).  “The terahertz range is full of unlimited potential that could benefit us all.”

Tapping the Terahertz Gap

Shown is the electromagnet spectrum, from radio waves used for FM and AM signals, to infrared waves used for remote controls, to gamma rays that kill cancer cells.  A team at UT Dallas is focusing on the "terahertz band," which has not been accessible for most consumer devices.

Using the new approach, images can be created with signals operating in the terahertz (THz) range without having to use several lenses inside a device. This could reduce overall size and cost.

The second advance that makes the findings applicable for consumer devices is the technology used to create the microchip. Chips manufactured using CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) technology form the basis of many consumer electronic devices used in daily life such as personal computers, smart phones, high definition TV and game consoles.

“CMOS is affordable and can be used to make lots of chips,” Dr. O said. “The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and receiver on the back of a cellphone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects.”  Due to privacy concerns, Dr. O and his team are focused on uses in the distance range of less than four inches.

Consumer applications of such technology could range from finding studs in walls to authentication of important documents. Businesses could use it to detect counterfeit money. Manufacturing companies could apply it to process control.  There are also more communication channels available in terahertz than the range currently used for wireless communication, so information could be more rapidly shared at this frequency.

“The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and receiver on the back of a cellphone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects.”

Dr. Kenneth O,
Texas Instruments Distinguished Chair, TxACE director

Terahertz can also be used for imaging to detect cancer tumors, diagnosing disease through breath analysis, and monitoring air toxicity. 

“There are all kinds of things you could be able to do that we just haven’t yet thought about,” said Dr.  O, holder of the Texas Instruments Distinguished Chair.

The research was presented at the most recent International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). The team will work next to build an entire working imaging system based on the CMOS terahertz system.

Other authors of the paper include Ruonan Han and Yaming Zhang, former students of Professor O, Yongwan Kim and Dae Yeon Kim, TxACE members,  and Hisashi Sam Shichijio, research professor at TxACE.

The work was supported by the Center for Circuit & System Solutions (C2S2 Center) and conducted in the TxACE laboratory at UT Dallas, which is funded by the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the state through its Texas Emerging Technology Fund, Texas Instruments Inc., The UT System and UT Dallas.

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Media Contact: LaKisha Ladson, UT Dallas, (972) 883-4183, lnl120030@utdallas.edu
or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, newscenter@utdallas.edu.

Texas Now Has The Thinnest Invisibility Cloak

Image via Wikipedia

http://www.crazyengineers.com/texas-now-has-the-thinnest-invisibility-cloak-535/

Cloaking devices i.e.; the invisibility cloaks are recently a topic of key focus for scientists. With recent developments like the ‘inaudibility cloaks’ and the previous ‘invisibility cloaks’, man’s hiding capabilities have been greatly increased. Though both the cloaks are yet to be commercialized, still we may say that we have got some basic concepts correct and most importantly we now have the Aladdin’s lamp or simply the metamaterials.

Researchers from University of Texas, Austin have developed a thinnest possible invisibility cloak till date. A research team led by prof. Andrea Alù, Dept. of Electrical and Computer engineering has put forward a concept of Mantle cloaking which revolves around using simple impedance surface to have an invisibility effect. Scientists have used Graphene as a material for making this cloak. Alù and his team members have proposed a material which can be tuned to a microwave frequency for which the material can adjust its surface impedance.

Development path for the recent invisibility cloak

Graphene is a promising material in today’s research area. Scientists from all over the world are trying to study as to how Graphene responds when subjected to AC. They are also trying to notice changes, if any, in conductivity of the material subjected to AC. In context of these researches, University of Texas team have observed that Graphene has the required surface impedance owing to its properties like easily tuned Fermi level and its ultra high mobility. So, the cloak can be tuned at will which also means that you can switch the cloak as per your need. The concept can also be applied in the Terahertz spectrum and leads to a thinnest possible cloak till date.

The concept and more importantly the ‘tunable’ properties of Graphene, will be well utilized in development of numerous other applications like non invasive sensors, low scattering electronic sensors and other IR switching devices which can be incorporated in monolithic photonic circuitry. The group had also presented a concept earlier in 2005 about Plasmonic cloaking. This idea is based on preventing the scattering from any passive object.

According to Alù, “The field of metamaterials, plasmonics and advanced materials, on which we are active since several years, holds the promise of revolutionizing current technology”. It seems he is correct in saying that because, there are still greater chances of compatibility of current technology with existing electronic components making them really advanced and upgrade them to changing times.

Source: Nanowerk