Researchers know that cancer cells are generally much more metabolically active than healthy cells, and some insights into a cancer cell’s behavior can be gleaned by analyzing its metabolic activity. But getting an accurate assessment of these characteristics has proven difficult for scientists, they say, adding that several methods, including position emission tomography (or PET) scans, fluorescent dyes, and contrasts have been used, but each has drawbacks that limit their usefulness.

Caltech’s Lihong Wang, PhD, believes he can do better through the use of photoacoustic microscopy (PAM), a technique in which laser light induces ultrasonic vibrations in a sample. Those vibrations can be used to image cells, blood vessels, and tissues… Continue reading.