Purdue Assembles Label-Free Imaging Research Team

As part of its strategic growth plan, Purdue University's College of Engineering has appointed a research team to develop label-free spectroscopic sensing techniques.

Label-free imaging foregoes fluorescent dyes and other time-consuming sample preparations that can kill tissues, enabling rapid and accurate imaging of unaltered living tissue and cells. Such advances could make it possible to quickly reveal precise molecular and chemical information about tissue for the diagnosis of conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The multidisciplinary team is led by Ji-Xin Cheng, a professor in Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and department of chemistry, and scientific director of the Label-Free Imaging Lab at Purdue's Discovery Park.

The effort will draw on research from such disciplines as electrical engineering, chemistry, biology and medicine. The technologies will include harnessing ultrasound signals from molecules exposed to a fast-pulsing laser and advanced nonlinear Raman imaging technology capable of near-instantaneous measurements of living tissue.