Seminar on Biophotonics in Kochi

St Albert’s College Physics Department with sponsorship from DBT Delhi conducted a one day seminar on Biophotonics on Tuesday, 12/2/2013. The seminar was inaugurated by  Rev Fr. Manger Antony Aarakal. Prof. Lawrel Gregory, HOD, welcomed the gathering. Principal Prof Harry Cleetus and Vice Principal Dr. Cyriac Mathew felicitated. The chief guest was Dr. Jayasree V.K, Head of the Department of Electronics Engineering,Model Engineering College, Thrikkakara. She was formally introduced by Prof Justine Paiva. 

The talk started with explanation of interaction of light with biomatter. Natural examples are photosynthesis, vision of eye etc. Biophotonics opened vistas for non-invasive diagnostics, tissue engineering etc.

Lasers can pin point cells which can be held on by precision lasers while other lasers repaired the cell.When light is incident on tissue, reflection, refraction, absorption and scattering can happen. Of this, scattering is the most important in diagnosis because from the scattering pattern, cancer if present can be detected, for eg. Raman scattering in CO2, Argon or Nd-YAG laser are used to detect cancer.

Bio imaging is another area which is replacing traditional imaging like X ray, CAT, MRI etc. The main reason is that optical imaging is non-toxic and harmless. In the therapy side photo sensors either injected or applied topically creates singlet oxygen atoms which destroy cancer cells while leaving normal cells alone.

Popular LASIK surgery has been  correcting faulty eye sight for ages now. PPG - Photo Plethysmography is now widely used to monitor heart level in ICUs. Comparing PPG's of a normal and diabetic person reveals the amount of degradation in the diabetic's circulation. EGG - Electro Gastrogram for stomach - generated from PPGs are going to help patients a lot in the near future; Dr Jayasree V.K concluded.