Scientists create a device that allows you to look inside tissues
Scientists from the Kilimovsk State Technological Academy named after Degtyarev are developing a unique laser system for studying the organs and tissues of the body at the molecular level. There are no domestic or foreign analogues of this complex. The research was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation.
Modern scientists can study the composition and changes in living cells in real time: tissues are labeled with fluorescent dyes and illuminated by laser beams. This method of cell screening is called bioimaging.
To put it even more simply, the device allows not only to see images of organs and tissues, but also to look inside them. For example, to enlighten the surface of the skin and muscles and to observe biological processes and the work of organs in dynamics, to look for foci of diseases, to monitor treatment.
“Currently, non-surgical methods of studying living tissues and organisms, based on the action of various physical principles, are of great interest in biotechnology. One of the promising directions in this field is multi-color two-photon fluorescent bioimaging, which allows radiation pulses to penetrate into biological tissue to a depth of several centimeters,” said the project manager, head of the department of laser physics and technology of KDTA named after Degtyarova Serhiy Solokhin.
According to the scientist, today, to implement this procedure, several laser emitters must be used at once, which is commercially unprofitable. Therefore, KDTA proposed the concept of creating a complex multifunctional installation based on one laser emitter.
At the beginning of 2023, the work on the project received a positive expert assessment, and the Russian Science Foundation made a decision on financial support for the second stage of research work. The result of the scientists’ work will be a unique laser emitter with the generation of ultrashort laser pulses for the non-surgical study of living tissues.
“We plan to conduct the next stage of project implementation in close cooperation with biotechnologists, take into account their comments and carry out precise adjustment of the necessary working modes,” the scientist added.
It should be noted that the development uses unique nanomaterials – graphene gates, which were specially manufactured in the nanomaterials spectroscopy laboratory of the Institute of General Physics named after A. M. Prokhorov RAS.