“Biomedical Imaging beyond the Visible: Fluorescence Imaging in the SWIR”

In his university-wide inaugural lecture on May 25, 2023, Prof. Oliver Bruns will provide insights into new contrast agents and imaging procedures that can be employed intraoperatively in surgical oncology.

Since 2022, Prof. Bruns has held the Chair of Functional Imaging in Surgical Oncology at TU Dresden’s Faculty of Medicine and at the National Center Tumor Diseases and University Cancer Center (NCT/UCC). The biochemist’s research relies on short-wave infrared light, fluorescent dyes and modern cameras, using novel methods to revolutionize imaging in oncological surgery. This could make it possible in the future to detect individual cancer cells on the edges of tumors and in lymph nodes during surgery. That would be a significant development, because if a surgeon makes an incision too close to the tumor, cancer cells can remain in the body. However, if too great a distance is kept to the tumor, critical neighboring structures like nerves could be damaged.

Following his academic training in Hamburg, Prof. Bruns worked at institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus (HPC). For his contributions to science, he has received the Karl-Heinz Hölzer Award for Interdisciplinary Medical Research and an Emmy Noether Grant. He is also a principal investigator and coordinator of the Deep Tissue Imaging Grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). Furthermore, he will serve as principal investigator of the BetterView consortium funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) until 2024.

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Dr. Anna Kraft
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