Atam Dhawan,Distinguished Professor of New Jersey Institute of Technology
IEEE Fellow, AIMBE Fellow
Title:Multispectral Optical Imaging Technologies: Characterization of Tissue and Vascular
Structures for Point-Of-Care Applications
Abstract:
Optical photographic imaging is a well-known imaging method that has been successfully translated into biomedical applications such
as microscopy and endoscopy. Optical imaging modalities including optical coherence tomography, confocal microscopy, multiphoton
microscopy, multispectral endoscopy, and diffuse reflectance imaging have recently emerged with significant potential for non-
invasive, portable, and cost-effective imaging for biomedical applications spanning tissue, cellular, and molecular levels.Though some
of the optical imaging technologies are well suited for clinical environment, several portable devices offer great potential for Point-Of-
Care (POC) applications for anywhere anytime monitoring to help early diagnosis and therapeutic intervention in many critical
healthcare applications. Diffuse reflectance based multispectral imaging methods will be reviewed for early detection and management
of the most fatal skin-cancer malignant melanoma as a mass screening POC device for high-risk patients. We have developed a novel
optical imaging system, called Nevoscope, that uses multispectral transillumination as to provide images of skin-lesions showing sub-
surface pigmentation as well as vascular architecture based blood volume information. This talk will present a multispectral Nevoscope
transillumination method to compare and analyze ratiometric measurements for estimation of blood volume and oxygen saturation
for early detection and discrimination of melanomas from dysplastic nevi. The method is recently extended towards the development
of a wearable non-invasive blood glucose monitor.
Brief Bio:
Atam P. Dhawan obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and Ph.D. from the
University of Manitoba, all in Electrical Engineering.From 1985-2000, he held faculty positions in Electrical & Computer Engineering,
and Radiology departments at University of Houston, University of Cincinnati, University of Texas at Arlington,and University of
Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. In July 2000, he joined NJIT where he served as the Chair of the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering (2000-2009). Currently he is Vice Provost for Research and Distinguished Professor of
Electrical & Computer Engineering.
Dr. Dhawan is Fellow of the IEEE for his contributions in medical imaging and image analysis.He is also an elected Fellow of the
American Society of Biological and Medical Engineering. He has published more than 215 research articles in refereed journals,
books, and conference proceedings. His current research interests are medical imaging, multi-modality medical image analysis, adaptive
learning and pattern recognition. His research work has been funded by NIH, NSF and several industries. Dr. Dhawan is a recipient
of Martin Epstein Award (1984), National Institutes of Health FIRST Award (1988), Sigma-Xi Young Investigator Award (1992),
University of Cincinnati Faculty Achievement Award (1994) and the prestigious IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Early
Career Achievement Award (1995) and University of Toledo Doermann Distinguished Lecture Award (1999). He served as the
Senior Editor of IEEE Transactions of Biomedical Engineering and Editor-In-Charge of IEEE TBME Letters (2007-2012).
Dr. Dhawan has chaired numerous NIH special emphasis and review panels including the NIH Chartered Study Section on Biomedical
Computing and Health Informatics (2008-11). He is Editor-In-Chief of the open-access IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering
in Health and Medicine.
He has served on many IEEE EMBS professional committees and has delivered several Workshops on Intelligent Biomedical Image
Analysis in IEEE EMBS International Conferences(1996, 1997, 2000, 2003). He served as the Chair of the “Emerging Technologies
Committee” of the IEEE-EMB Society from 1997-99, and 2009-11. He was the Chair of the “New Frontiers in
Biomedical Engineering” Symposium at the World Congress 2000 on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering. He was the
Conference Chair of the IEEE 28th International Conference of Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, New York in
2006. He served as the Conference Chair of IEEE International Conference on Point-of-Care Healthcare Technologies held in
Bangalore India (January 16 -18, 2013) and Healthcare Innovation Conference held in Seattle (October 8-10, 2014). He is serving
as the Co-Chair of the NIH Strategic Conference on Point-Of-Care Technologies for Precision Medicine to be held in Bethesda on
November 9-10,2015.