Grant: Alliance Grants

The fundamental single cell limit to minimally invasive surgery has been achieved with the Picosecond InfraRed Laser (PIRL) scalpel - without scar tissue formation and with complete molecular signatures of excised tissue remaining perfectly intact. The basic physics of this unique tool involve the selective excitation of water vibrations and direct coupling to translational motions to drive ablation processes faster than energy loss to surrounding tissue and associated collateral damage or thermal modification of the molecular composition of the tissue being excised. One obtains an instant snapshot of the molecular fingerprints of the tissue to know exactly what tissue is being cut. If the wrong tissue is removed, the surgery is hardly minimally invasive. PIRL provides molecular level information for identifying cancer borders, disease states, and completely avoids damage to healthy tissue. Healing is found to occur with no visible scar tissue formation. Scar tissue is not only cosmetically undesirable but also limits the efficacy for all surgical procedures. This feature holds the prospect for full recovery of function and with the associated reduced health care costs. The proposed research will develop the next generation of PIRL surgical systems that will provide single cell accuracy at speeds comparable to the highest speed surgical tools in the OR. All fiber beam delivery systems will also be developed that will enable access to different parts of the body with entry wound sizes of only 200 microns (dimensions of a single hair) for removing cancers, biopsies, disease tissue with absolutely minimal trauma. On the basic science front, this research program will increase the sensitivity of spatial imaging mass spectrometry (MS) by exploiting the intact molecular signatures and high collection efficiency inherent to the PIRL ablation process to push towards single cell resolution to directly map biochemical pathways leading to cell functions and onset of disease states. This objective will additionally provide the tissue specific molecular information for surgical guidance and given the sensitivity of MS, represent the ultimate limit to biodiagnostics for the detection of diseases at the earliest possible stage.