Professor Stefan Andersson-Engels is recruited as the Group Head of the newly established Biophotonics@Tyndall Group based at the Tyndall National Institute. The Group has been set up with generous financial support and infrastructure support which provides fantastic opportunities for world-class research within biophotonics. The Group’s major focus will be to form close collaborations with clinicians, research centres and companies to accelerate biophotonics technology and rapidly deliver this new technology into the hands of health-care providers. Using photonics as a driver for the faster development and deployment of more accurate, less invasive diagnostic and treatment methods for cancer and other diseases, the ultimate aim of Biophotonics@Tyndall is to radically improve health outcomes for patients.
Prof. Andersson-Engels has been awarded several prizes for his research achievements. One of his main areas of focus has been the translational research in tumour detection and localisation or delineation of diseased regions. The most cited publication of the PI is from a study introducing ALA-PDT for clinical therapy of non-melanoma skin cancer, something that today is a first-line therapy at most derma-oncological clinics in many countries. As part of one of the pioneering groups in this field, the research conducted at the early stage of the PI’s career was ground-breaking and essential in establishing and forming this now mature field of research. At that time, this achievement was essential as it developed the first portable, health-care adapted biophotonics spectroscopy system that could be employed in translational studies within the medical environment. This translational step has later been identified as a milestone by leaders in the field. Other highlights of the PI’s scientific career include the development and studies of the photon time-of-flight spectroscopy (pTOFS) and the gas in scattering media absorption spectroscopy (GASMAS) techniques. Further important accomplishments include the development of accelerated Monte Carlo algorithms for biomedical optics, and the work on upconverting nanoparticles as a novel contrast agent for biomedical imaging and photoactivation, with many interesting properties.
Internationally, Prof. Andersson-Engels has organised many leading conferences in the field of biomedical optics; both as a general and program co-chair (e.g. a Gordon research conference, ECBO and BIOMED), as subcommittee chair (e.g. CLEO, ECBO, BIOMED and ACP), and as a subcommittee member for many conferences. He is in addition currently engaged in the editorial boards of several scientific journals in biophotonics (JBO, JBP, and J Biomed Photon & Eng.).
At OSA has been a member of the Board of Directors and the chair of the Membership and Education Council. However, the organisational leadership achievement that has made him most renowned in the field of Biomedical Optics is that he is the co-founder and organiser of the international summer school ‘Biophotonics’, given bi-annually since 2003. This school is now considered and recognised as the most prestigious summer school in the biophotonics field by international leaders. Teaching and training the next generation of motivated and talented individuals at all levels has always been a priority for Professor Andersson-Engels. For his teaching achievements, he was awarded the “Lindbomska belöningen” from the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Stefan has also been recognised for his entrepreneurial skills and has received several prizes – including the SKAPA award, the most prestigious entrepreneurship award in Sweden.
The Biophotonics@Tyndall Group research programme will include the following projects, which are divided into application-driven and fundamental research/technology-platform driven tasks.
Application driven tasks: Clinical & Preclinical challenges: Several issues will be studied with an application focus, initially with techniques deemed to be the most promising for that particular task, and then, when necessary, complemented with more sophisticated multimodal techniques. The proposed primary targeted medical application projects integrate well with ongoing activities at the various clinics, and aim to translate into clinically evaluated prototypes for patient care. This part of the project will include:
Optical diagnostics and guidance of medical interventions: Many diagnostic procedures, clinical interventions and preclinical studies would tremendously benefit from improved guidance. Five areas of research are included in this proposal:
Technology–platform tasks: Deep tissue imaging/therapy with optical contrast:Fundamental biomedical optics research will involve two principally different principles for deep tissue imaging/manipulation with optical contrast:
A major challenge is the relative poor light penetration in tissue due to high scattering. This also results in limited spatial resolution. The aim is to develop novel techniques for optical imaging deep in tissue with previously unseen spatial resolution: