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Advanced Spectroscopy Laboratory

Texas A&M University College of Engineering

Advanced Spectroscopy Lab

Our lab is dedicated to making advancements in biomedical diagnostics and imaging. Our research spans a variety of topics including, spectroscopic analysis of bio molecules on the cellular and molecular levels, deep tissue imaging, machine learning, and computer aided diagnostics. We have collaborative relationships with the Air Force Research Lab,  University of Sao Paulo, and various research groups here at Texas A&M University.

Students interested in gaining research experience, and researchers interested in collaboration are encouraged to contact us.


People

The researchers in this lab are under the direction of Dr. Vladislav V. Yakovlev.  We have numerous projects, present at conferences, and publish regularly in high quality journals. The People link will guide you to discover more information about us.

  • my face2
    Graduate Student: Eddie M Gil
  • yakovlev_web
    Principal Investigator: Dr.Vladislav V. Yakovlev
  • 2019_Photo
    Graduate Student: Christopher Marble
  • Doktor.Dominik
    Graduate Student: Dominik Doktor
  • IMG_20200106_160500_Bokeh
    Graduate Student: Sean P O'Connor
  • Bio photo MTW – Maria Troyanova-Wood
    Lab allumni: Maria Troyanova-Wood
  • My Pic Close
    Graduate Student: Joshua Lalonde
  • pro-1
    Graduate Student: Jace Willis
  • 20180901_Brick_Background
    Graduate Student: Mark Keppler
  • WeddingPic – Zachary Coker
    Graduate Student: Zachary Coker

 


Research

Displayed here are some featured projects of the lab. For a more comprehensive list of our ongoing work please follow the Research link.

Retinal Laser Lesion Segmentation

by Eddie Gil

Healthcare providers face a data deluge. This makes quick and efficient decision making challenging. Having automated assist systems can alleviate this issue and save lives. Computer aided diagnostics describes techniques  to assist medical professionals not replace them. One such example is in retinal lesion segmentation.

High power lasers have become easily accessible. Retinal Laser damage may occur under a variety of conditions. However, identifying retinal lesions is challenging and typically requires a panel of ophthalmologists. We trained a fully convolutional network to perform automated segmentation of retinal laser lesions in fundus images. We trained a similar network to perform semantic segmentation of the images as well to display whether damage was, photothermal, photomechanical, or photo chemical.

Fundus images input to the segmentation network alongside their groudtruths and the network output.

Preprocessed image alongside semantic segmentaiton result from network. Color in the segmentation image maps to photothermal, photomechanical, and photochemical damage.

Traumatic Brain Injury

by Joshua Lalonde

Service members experience traumatic brain injury (TBI) at a rate between 24-41% per 10,000 soldiers-years. We aim to address knowledge gaps  in order to develop better treatments for TBI. The  knowledge gap in our current understanding of TBI comes from biomechanical changes at the tissue and cellular levels. Brillouin spectroscopy can be performed in vivo to extract mechanical information at these scales without need to euthanize the animal test subject afterwards. This makes Brillouin spectroscopy an exciting and ideal modality for addressing this knowledge gap.

A diagram showing a scheme for inducing traumatic brain injury in zebrafish using a steel ball bearing. This set up is discussed in Maheras etal. (2018) eNeuro 5(1)

A diagram of Brillouin spectroscopy peaks from   Antonacci (2015). Doctoral Dissertation

 

Brillouin Scattering

by Sean O’Connor and Dominik Doktor

Understanding physiological mechanisms at the organelle level is crucial to the development of novel treatments. Viscoelastic properties of materials are of particular interest. Impulsive Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (ISBS) is an emerging nonlinear spectroscopy technique which can be used to probe these viscoelastic properties.  The advantage of this technique is that it requires less acquisition time than Spontaneous Brillouin Scattering ( SpBS).

Our focus is to improve the spatial resolution of ISBS systems to cellular and organelle level imaging. This can later be used to reveal insights about mitochondria, cytoskeletons, etc.

 

Schematic for laser system

Schematic for optical phenomena. Ballmann (2017). Doctoral Dissertation

Compressed Hyperspectral Raman

by Mark Keppler

Hyperspectral microscopy captures spatial information about a scene in a series of images, where each image covers a different wavelength over a large portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Key Points:

  • Scanning can be replaced with a digital micromirror device (DMD).
  • DMD spatially encodes a scene.
  • Reduces acquisition time to a single-shot.
  • Hyperspectral image stacks are reconstructed by compressed sensing algorithms.

Schematic of the hyperspectral raman imaging system.

Barium Sulfate Spectrum acquired from 1 line in the hyperspectral raman image.

resulting 2D reconstruction of acquired image.


 

Publications

Shown are some publications of interest.

Assessment of Local Heterogeneity in Mechanical Properties of Nanostructured Hydrogel Networks

Z Meng, T Thakur, C Chitrakar, MK Jaiswal, AK Gaharwar, VV Yakovlev
ACS nano 11 (8), 7690-7696

Enhanced coupling of light into a turbid medium through microscopic interface engineering

JV Thompson, BH Hokr, W Kim, CW Ballmann, BE Applegate, J Jo, …
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114 (30), 7941-7946

Towards optical brain imaging: getting light through a bone

JV Thompson, BH Hokr, DT Nodurft, VV Yakovlev
Journal of Modern Optics, 1-7

Enhanced second harmonic generation efficiency via wavefront shaping

JV Thompson, BH Hokr, GA Throckmorton, D Wang, MO Scully, …
ACS Photonics 4 (7), 1790-1796

News

Here are some news stories about our lab!

Yakovlev Looking To Shed Light Deeper Into The Human Brain
New Technology Developed at Texas A&M Could Improve Diabetes Management
New Technology Could Mean Better Chemical Analysis on Earth and in Space
New material developed at Texas A&M Could Improve Ultrasound Technology

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