Thermal imaging is considered to be non-specific. Thermal images cannot be transmitted by commercial SiO2 imaging bundles used in every endoscope. Laser energy in the mid IR cannot be transmitted in SiO2 fibers as well. Thus cannot be applied inside the body. This multi avenue project is aimed at development of a system that can transmit IR laser energy through specialty fibers, Retrieve thermal images from within body cavities for the purpose of diagnostic and feedback for optimization of a laser tissue interaction within body cavities. This talk will describe the theoretical and the experimental parts of this project and will be opened for discussions regarding possible investigational applications at the GW Medical Center.

Prof. Israel Gannot received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion and M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Tel-Aviv University, all in Israel. He held a fellowship from the American Academy of Sciences before he joined Tel-Aviv University, Department of Biomedical Engineering where he established the Lasers and Optics in Medicine Research Lab (http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~bmoptics). Since 2001 he was on an extended sabbatical leave at the NIH and has recently joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the George Washington University. Prof. Gannot is very active in SPIE, OSA, IEEE, ASLMS and is a fellow of the American Institute of Biomedical Engineering (AIMBE). His research activities are in the field of Optical Imaging, Fiber-optics delivery devices and laser-tissue interaction and biomedical informatics.