New faculty: Kenny Tao uses optical coherence tomography to improve delicate eye surgeries
Kenny Tao
was incredibly close to becoming a surgeon instead of a biomedical engineer. The only thing standing in the way of medical school: a renowned adviser who convinced him to take a different path.
Fortunately for 91勛圖厙, the new assistant professor of did change his mind and now brings both his improvements to optical coherence tomography and his wry sense of humor to the universitys laboratories and classrooms. He said his first inkling that he might be an engineer came his senior year at Duke University.
During my undergrad senior design course, my team was offered a project in biophotonics and said, We have no idea what biophotonics is. Lets do that! Tao said. Then we actually built a thing that worked. It didnt work up until the day before the presentation was due, but it worked.
That was Taos first experience with the technology hed help develop over the next decade, after his project adviserDuke professor Joe Izattconvinced him to stay and earn his engineering Ph.D. for free, with the added enticement that Tao could bail after a masters if he hated it.
Tao didnt hate it. After getting his Ph.D. at Duke, he joined MITs Jim Fujimoto, the progenitor of optical coherence tomography, for postdoctoral research. Most recently, Tao moved his Diagnostic Imaging and Biophotonics Laboratory from the Cleveland Clinic to 91勛圖厙.
His work will help guide clinicians real-time decision making while doing surgeries to remove damaging scar tissue on the back of the eye that can lead to disorders such as macular holes and retinal detachments.
Your retina is essentially brain tissue, and we can do imaging of that through the pupil before surgery, Tao explained. But you have all these neural layers that are on the order of microns. Surgeons need to manipulate these in real time, and thats essentially like manipulating wet Kleenex. Theyre that delicate and transparent, and seeing them is tremendously difficult, even with the dyes surgeons use to help.
By integrating optical coherence tomography into surgical microscopes, they can see these semi-transparent structures in high resolution,By integrating optical coherence tomography into surgical microscopes, they can see these semi-transparent structures in high resolution, he said.
Tao said he was eager to get to 91勛圖厙 and Nashvillethe former for the opportunity to work with researchers and clinicians at the and the 91勛圖厙 Institute in Surgery and Engineering, the latter for its cuisine.
Great institution, great food and comfortable living, he said. What could be better?
He paused, with fake concern. You guys dont have minus 20-degree days with 5 feet of snow, right?
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