Samer Habeel knows he lucked out scoring a research spot in Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Joe Lo鈥檚 bioengineering lab. It鈥檚 not every undergrad, after all, who gets to hack a high-powered, military-grade riflescope and help turn it into a medical device.
鈥淚t鈥檚 true: I don鈥檛 think many pre-med students are paid to take apart a night vision goggle and hook up high voltage to it,鈥 Lo said, laughing. 鈥淏ut if you use the same standard equipment that everyone else is using, then you鈥檙e not going to be able to innovate.鈥
Lo and Habeel hope their out-of-the-box approach will help them build a prototype device that harnesses the power of ultraviolet light to differentiate between different types of tissues. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really not that far-fetched an idea,鈥 Lo said. 鈥淚f you鈥檝e been to a night club, you鈥檝e probably seen how black lights make your t-shirt glow blue. That鈥檚 because the cotton fibers are being exposed to UV light.鈥
Other biological materials also fluoresce, though they each have unique color profiles. Habeel and Lo are looking at collagen fibers鈥攁 protein that is found in our cells in a variety of forms.
鈥淔or example, an ulcer that is not healing or a certain type of skin cancer will have different collagen than healthy tissue. So the idea is different kinds of tissues could be identified based on how they respond to UV light.鈥
They鈥檙e using this concept鈥攁nd the powerful detectors in that night vision scope鈥攖o build two versions of their instrument.
One functions more like a traditional microscope and looks at biopsied tissue samples that are placed on slides. The second version wouldn鈥檛 require any tissue samples at all: A medical practitioner could, for example, simply hold the device over a person鈥檚 skin, take a scan and get a detailed readout of what a particular tissue was made of.
鈥淭he major advantage is that it鈥檚 totally non-invasive,鈥 Habeel said. Plus, both devices potentially could provide in-office results within 30 minutes or so. Right now, tissue samples usually require overnight analysis.
Habeel, who expects to graduate this fall, said the project has been a natural blend of his two academic interests. 鈥淚鈥檓 currently doing a bioengineering degree, but I鈥檓 interested in going to medical school,鈥 he said. 鈥淭his bridges the gap: We鈥檙e doing real engineering work with the scope, but the idea is that we want to turn that into something that can be used with actual patients.鈥
Lo said that kind of innovative mindset is what medical schools are increasingly looking for in students.
鈥淚f Samer decides that鈥檚 what he wants to do, the technology five years down the line will be a lot different,鈥 Lo said. 鈥淪o it makes no sense to simply train them with textbooks that are 10 years old, versus an open mind and the experience of discovering new technology. Then he has the motivation and aptitude to figure out what鈥檚 next.鈥
Plus, Lo said, any day he can do something meaningful with a student鈥攚ith or without a major breakthrough鈥攊s a good day in the lab.
