Clinical Deployment of a Platform Technology for Spectroscopic Identification of Diseases

Leblond describes recent advancements in his group's laboratory that led to the development, technology transfer, and clinical translation of optical spectroscopy instruments to guide surgical procedures, including the resection of tumors (brain, prostate, breast, and ovaries/uterus) and targeted brain needle biopsies. Other work is presented using optical spectroscopy for rapid saliva-based COVID-19 screening and diagnostic/prognostics approaches for improved prostate cancer patient stratification and pediatric focal cortical dysplasia detection using Raman microspectroscopy.

About the presenter
Frédéric Leblond, Ph.D, is a professor in the Department of Engineering Physics at Polytechnique Montréal and director of the Laboratory for Radiological Optics (LRO). He is also a research scientist at the CRCHUM medical research center and co-founder of the company ODS Medical. He holds a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from Polytechnique Montréal, a master's degree in physics from Laval University, and a doctorate in physics from McGill University. After receiving his doctorate, he was a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Chicago. He was then a senior researcher for three years and worked on the development of medical instruments at a Montreal medical imaging company. Prior to joining Polytechnique, Leblond was a professor of engineering at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire for five years, where he was also affiliated with the Dartmouth-Hitchcock medical center. Leblond's research is related to the development of light-based medical devices to characterize biological tissues to improve the accuracy and safety of surgical procedures, as well as to develop techniques to improve the accuracy of medical diagnostics.