Professor James W. Tunnell has received a Phase II Early Career Award from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation to support his work in developing optical spectroscopy for the early detection of skin cancer.
James W. Tunnell
Professor James W. Tunnell has received a Phase II Early Career Award from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation to support his work in developing optical spectroscopy for the early detection of skin cancer. This award provides $260,000 over two years to develop a prototype and conduct clinical trials that will be carried out at MD Anderson Cancer Center and UTMB, Austin. The Phase II award recipients were chosen from the Phase I award recipients that showed promise for commercialization. Seven Phase II awards were chosen of the 23 Phase I awardees. Tunnell received the Phase I award in 2006.
Skin cancer is the most common malignancy worldwide. There are more than a million cases and greater than 10,000 deaths in the US alone each year. As with other forms of cancer, early detection and subsequent treatment saves lives and reduces morbidity.
The current detection of skin cancers relies on a critical visual analysis of the skin by a physician and biopsy (or excision) of suspected malignancies. Excised tissue is then analyzed using standard histopathology for diagnosis and treatment decisions. This process is inherently invasive as it requires tissue removal and time-consuming due to histological processing.
The device Dr. Tunnell and his collaborators are developing uses light to measure the cellular and molecular signatures of skin cancer. This procedure does not require tissue removal and can provide an instant diagnosis. The use of optics provides a low cost and non-invasive system capable of an objective and instantaneous tissue analysis.
The collaborators on the project include Dr. Tri Nguyen, Director of the Mohs Micrograph and Dermatologic Surgery Clinic at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Dr. Jason Reichenberg, Clinical Director for Dermatology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Austin.
More information on Dr. Tunnell’s research: http://www.bme.utexas.edu/research/tunnell/
From the Coulter Foundation website (http://www.whcf.org): The Early Career Awards program provides funding for Assistant Professors in established Biomedical Engineering Departments within North America. The award seeks to support biomedical research that is translational in nature, and to encourage and assist eligible biomedical engineering investigators to establish themselves in academic careers involving translational research. The translational research projects are directed at promising technologies with the goal of progressing toward commercial development and entering clinical practice.
