Dr. Christian Dullin from Universitätsmedizin Göttingen is part of work packages 1,2 and 3 of the CoDaFlight project. In the project, Christian leads the user software development of the tdFLI instrument and the development of real-time algorithms for the analysis of the data. With other colleagues from Universitätsmedizin Göttingen, he focuses on the generation of validated proofs-of-concept on the use and advantages of tdFLI for different medical applications.
Introduce yourself
Hello everyone, my name is Christian Dullin. I’m a physicist by training and employed in the Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Department at the University Medical Center in Göttingen, Germany. I do preclinical imaging and have roughly 20 years of experience in experimental radiology, optical imaging and software development. Our part in the project is preclinical evaluation of the new camera and the new approach and also the development of the front end and the implementation of real-time algorithms for the analysis of the data.
What is your role in the project?
CoDaFlight deals with lifetime fluorescence imaging. Lifetime is an additional characteristic parameter apart of the specific combination of emission and excitation wavelength which allows to be more sensitive and to be better discriminate between background signal and signal of specific fluorescent dyes which were also generated within the project. In addition, lifetime measurements are vastly independent by the intensity and also other typical problems like chromatic aberrations in optical systems. So I believe that the ability to do lifetime measurements will generate better images with a better contrast and also with the ability to get signals from a more deep location than we are currently possible with standard fluorescence.
What will be the achievements of the project?
The ability to measure fluorescence lifetime is not only good to work in combination with specific dyes, it also allows to better characterize the auto-fluorescent signal of tissue and also of potentially bacteria and other foreign stuff in the body. So, that means that even without a clinical permission to use new dyes, this kind f imaging modality would in my opinion be very helpful and could also be integrated in endoscopes or bronchoscopes to do a better diagnostic of what’s going on.