Topic ：Label-free spectroscopic imaging towards precision medicine

Lecturer ：Ji-Xin CHENG（Purdue University – West Lafayette）

Time ： 10:00, May 27, 2016

Place ：Room 416, Yifu Building 

Abstract ：

Current medical imaging tools rely on physical or physiological properties, rather than molecular content of the tissue. Without biomarker information, it remains difficult to differentiate metastatic diseases from the benign forms that can be left without treatment. For chemical content analysis, current strategy relies on tissue homogenization and separation, followed by various in vitro assays. This approach reveals the presence of molecules and their cellular concentrations. However, without spatial and temporal dynamics information, how molecules execute their functions in a living system remains unknown. Lack of such information has slowed the discovery of biomarkers for early diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. My research team is devoted to changing this conventional paradigm of medical imaging and bio-analysis through inventing and developing label-free vibrational spectroscopic imaging technologies (Science 2015, 350: 1054). In this presentation, I will present the most forefront of the molecular spectroscopic imaging field in the technology, biological application, and clinical translation perspectives.

Biographer ：

Professor Ji-Xin Cheng is a Full Professor of Department of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Chemistry, and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Director of Label-free Imaging at Purdue University in the United States. Prof. Cheng received his BS and PhD in Chemical Physics from University of Science and Technology of China in 1994 and 1998, respectively. After postdoctoral trainings in Universite Paris-sud (France) and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, he joined Sunney Xie’s group at Harvard University in 2000 as a postdoc, where he and others developed CARS microscopy that allows high-speed vibrational imaging of cells and tissues. Prof. Cheng and his research team has been constantly at the most forefront of the rising field of molecular spectroscopic imaging in technology, science, and clinical translation. Prof. Cheng is authored in over 180 peer-reviewed articles that have been cited more than 18,000 times, with an h-index of 60 (Google Scholar). He is the lead editor of the first book on coherent Raman scattering microscopy, CRC Press, 2012. He has been the Principal Investigator of more than $14 million research grant (in US dollar) from NSF, NIH, DOD, and others. He organized 23 national/ international symposia and delivered over 200 invited talks. He is the initiator and organizer of a biennial Telluride Symposium on laser-based microscopy since 2011, and the organizer of an annual international summer school on spectroscopic imaging held at the Purdue Campus since 2011. He is a co-inventor of CARS microscope which is now available through Olympus and Leica. In 2013 He co-founded Vibronix Inc which has the mission of saving lives through vibrational imaging technology. He serves on the editorial board of Scientific Reports, Vibrational Spectroscopy, Journal of Analytical, and Bioanalytical Techniques, Nanomaterials and Tissue Regeneration, and other prestigious journals. Prof. Cheng’s achievements have been recently recognized by Fellow of American Institute of Medicine and Biological Engineering, Craver Award from Coblentz Society, and Chang-Jiang Scholar from Chinese Minister of Education.