Gabriel Popescu using microscopy to revolutionize blood and tissue testing

Imagine being able to take a blood test where you drop a small amount of blood on a CD ROM, insert it into your laptop and the computer provides you with instant results. That is just one of the applications Gabriel Popescu sees as the end game of the optics research he is conducting at Illinois.

Popescu explained his vision during a TEDxTalk two years ago and the progress of his research continues to evolve thanks in part to a National Science Foundation I-Corps grant he received in January.

Popescu and his team are in the process of developing new kinds of microscopy, making the imaging of cells and tissues more sensitive, higher resolution, and less toxic.

“We achieve that by doing what we call label free measurements, meaning that we don’t add contrast agents to the cells and therefore they are happier,” Popescu said. “We are non-evasive.”

What sets Popescu’s research apart is the fact that the cells can be viewed without staining them. The standard in health care has been to stain the tissues, a technique where dyes are used to enhance contrast in the microscopic image. That technique can be a lengthy process.

“We have done a lot of clinical research, including diagnostics on biopsies without regular staining,” Popescu explained. “We can do the same thing for blood testing. Diagnosis without stains hasn’t been done before. With this method, we think we can help provide an unbiased view of the diagnosis.”

Popescu’s goal is to help produce a device that costs less than $100, can be used in the field and not only provide much quicker results, but also significantly more quantitative data. While the current method uses devices that flow one cell at a time, getting a signal or two from each, and producing such information as hemoglobin and volume, Popescu sees his non-invasive technique as the future of such tests.

In that method, the patient or clinician would smear red blood cells onto a glass slide and use a GPU (graphics processing unit) card to produce statistics in real time, sometimes even without human intervention. Using the GPU, 40 megapixel images are acquired and processed every second. He also indicates that the method provides awareness into the surface area of the cells, which gives insight into how they deform or bend, which is more beneficial to a diagnosis than just the volume information The cost of each test would also be significantly less -- $10 each as opposed to around $700.

“We look at this model as kind of an iPad and apps idea,” Popescu said. “We have the hardware, which is the microscope. If you pair it with the right software, you can tackle very specific biological applications.”

Popescu’s team is able to weigh single cells by sending light through them and gauging how the light bends in the cells. They are also able to look at their stiffness of cells and determine when their growth is disordered and even take video of cell interactions.

“We can pick up the vibration in the membrane,” Popescu added. “It’s both an interesting physics problem, but also it becomes the signature of the health of the cell at the individual level which is very difficult to achieve otherwise.”

Because this imaging process allows for sensing disorder in the tissue, it also provides a much better method for early detection of diseases such as cancer.

“We are able to pick up very small deviations from normal at a very early stage at the single cell level,” Popescu explains. “Right now the way a blood test is done, you run it through a machine and if something is grossly wrong, it flags it and the human pathologist comes in and looks at it. We have this information much earlier using machine-learning algorithms.”

That idea is similar for the biopsies as well where Popescu’s group has done a lot of work in prostate cancer detection.

“On average, normal and tumor cells look much the same, but the way it’s organized is totally different,” Popescu said. “If normal tissue looks nicely organized, like a brick wall for instance, tumor tissues are disorderly, like a wall after a bus ran into it.”

Together with a group of talented graduate students and postdocs, Popescu is trying to catch the disease before it is too damaging and, in some cases, predict how devastating the lesion is.

Popescu has been at the forefront of the field of Quantitative Phase Imaging for the past 10 years, recently publishing a book on the subject (McGraw Hill 2011). He has been focused on moving toward commercialization for about two years and believes that the University of Illinois provides the proper backdrop to make that happen.

“We’re very well known as an engineering school,” Popescu said. “Our output is exceptional compared to any institution in the world, but the entrepreneurial activities are also ramping up.”

Popescu has developed a start-up team called Phi Optics as a way to move his technology toward commercialization. The team includes Dr. Caitlin Chiritescu (entrepreneurial lead), Tim Hoerr (business mentor) and Jed Taylor from Technology Entrepreneur Center on campus. Phi Optics moved its operation to Enterprise Works at the University of Illinois Research Park in January.

Popescu used the I-Corps funding as a precursor toward seeking venture capital. He sees commercialization as the third in a three-step unveiling process after targeting first researchers and clinicians. He is such a believer in I-Corps that he was asked to testify on the program’s merits at a Congressional hearing last summer.

Popescu sees many other potential applications to this imaging technique. He is currently looking at how neurons connect together and to muscle cells. He also sees the future possibility of using fiber optics to study tissues while they are still in the body without needing to extract them. Together with colleague Lynford Goddard (ECE), Popescu has been working toward extending quantitative phase imaging to materials testing and nanotechnology

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Photo Credits: Image 1 acquired by Hoa Pham. Adapted from H. Pham et al., PLoS One (2013).  Image 2 acquired by Zhuo Wang. Adapted from Z. Wang et al., J. Biomed. Opt. (2011)

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Mike Koon, writer/editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-1256.