Despite advances in microsurgery, it can still be difficult to tell if a skin cancer has been entirely removed without a follow up biopsy, which could require a patient to come back for a second operation.<\/p>\n
But what if the biopsy could be performed noninvasively as part of the initial procedure, so the surgeon would know immediately whether additional cancerous tissue needed to be removed?<\/p>\n
A novel optical device to do just that moved a step closer to commercialization recently. LighTopTech<\/a>, a University of Rochester spinoff, was one of 10 startups to advance to the next phase of a competition sponsored by the accelerator Luminate<\/a>.<\/p>\n The company received an investment of $100,000 from the accelerator. It will now compete with the nine other finalists for the top prize: A $1 million additional investment, to be announced in June. The accelerator, based in Rochester and funded by New York State, is focused on advancing next generation optics, photonics, and imaging companies.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is our first outside investment,\u201d says company president Cristina Canavesi. She co-founded LighTopTech in 2013 with her PhD advisor, Jannick Rolland<\/a>, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering at the University. Rolland is the company\u2019s chief technology officer.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the past four years we\u2019ve completely re-engineered the prototype, and we recently completed all of the hardware development of our product, so we are now ready to launch the commercialization effort, especially targeting medical applications,\u201d Canavesi says.<\/p>\n Rolland first conceived of the idea for the device 11 years ago after experiencing a biopsy and learning about the risks involved. About the same time, a technique called optical coherence tomography was coming into wide use to obtain images inside tissues.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it really connected the dots,\u201d Rolland says. \u201cIf we could do an optical biopsy noninvasively it would eliminate the risks. The (OCT) images were kind of low resolution and noisy, so my first goal was to produce images of a higher definition.\u201d<\/p>\nAn \u2018optical biopsy\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n