CAREER: Imaging multi-scale viscoelastic properties of cancer-associated remodeling

#1351474

P.I.: Amy L. Oldenburg

The PI proposes to construct a novel integrated system that incorporates optical coherence tomography (OCT), a method for visualizing cross-sections of cells in thick tissues, with in-line digital holography to rapidly image in-plane motions near the tissue surface. The OCT component will monitor light scattering fluctuations from diffusing gold nanorods which act as probes of the nanotopological environment. The holography component will capture induced surface elastic waves, which will be reconstructed into high resolution tissue elastograms. Integration of these imaging systems enables coregistration of driven and diffusive motions at multiple length scales in order to relate subcellular architecture with bulk viscoelastic properties. The proposed integrated system will be employed to study an early-stage breast cancer tissue culture model in which normal and pre-malignant mammary epithelial cells (MECs) are co-cultured with stromal fibroblasts. Measuring the microscale extracellular matrix stiffness in conjunction with nanorheological measurements in and around MECs and stromal cells will provide new insight into the biophysical processes that lead to breast cancer.