Physical and Biophysical Chemistry, Bio-Imaging

Education
1976 PhD., University of Toledo, Toledo, OH

1970 Vordiplom (BS) Universität Karlsruhe, Germany

Honors & Awards
2006 Society for Applied Spectroscopy (SAS) National Tour Speaker

2000 Lester W. Strock Award, SAS, for outstanding work in vibrational spectroscopy

Research Interests

The research in Prof. Diem’s laboratory is centered on the development of optical methods for medical diagnosis, in particular for medical imaging. In contrast to standard pathology, where stained cells and tissues are examined visually under a microscope, we measure changes in cellular composition using molecular fingerprint techniques, such as infrared and Raman micro-spectroscopy. The research being carried out is divided into two major areas. In our work on tissue diagnostics, we have developed methods for the detection and identification of secondary (metastatic) tumors in lymph nodes, see Panels A&B. We are working on producing instrumentation and software that can analyze lymph node sections in the operating room, and provide the surgeon with an objective diagnosis of the spread of disease.

The second major research area is the detection of cellular abnormality in a sample of exfoliated cervical, urothelial or buccal cells We can distinguish cell types in such samples by the same optical measurements used for tissue diagnostics, and sophisticated multivariate statistical methods, see Figure C. This work opens the possibilities of designing systems for cancer screening.

Selected Publications