Jennifer K. Barton is Associate Professor, Director, and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona. She also holds appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Optical Sciences She is also the Director of Tissue Optics Laboratory at University of Arizona. The Tissue Optics Laboratory is an interdisciplinary effort located at the University of Arizona in the Keating Biosciences Building of the BIO5 Institute.
This gives us a very controlled way of looking at ovarian cancer.In UA engineers zero in on early detection of ovarian cancer
Our goal is to identify biomarkers at the earliest possible stage of ovarian cancer to build a viable optical imaging technology that will enable early detection and save lives.In UA engineers zero in on early detection of ovarian cancer
OCT can be used for a variety of organs, but ovarian cancer caught my attention because it is such a devastating disease...It is a challenge because the ovaries are inside the body and there is no screening technique that works well and most women don’t have any symptoms until it is very advanced...So if we want to look at them with OCT you would have to get right up against the ovary. That won’t work in the general population, but there is a group of women who have high risk of ovarian cancer doctors often recommend removing them. Now that might not be a difficult decision to make in your 60s but that is a terrible decision to have to make in your 20s. Our idea is that if we could tell with certainty the ovaries were normal then that woman could keep her ovaries and just be screened every couple of years.In Jennifer Barton is one women who wears many hats at University of Arizona