Liaohai Leo Chen

Email Address: lhchen@uic.edu
College: Medicine Department: Surgery
Secondary Department: Chemistry
Title: Professor

Participating in the Chancellor’s Undergraduate Research Awards program: Yes

Research Interest:
The Surgical Precision R&D Laboratory fosters the convergence of engineering with physical sciences and life sciences and focuses on translational efforts in developing smart tools for surgery and drug delivery, early disease warning devices, and probes for molecular imaging and imaging guided therapy.

Current research themes include:

1.Intraprocedural microperfusion quantification for tissue function assessment,
anastomosis, flap and transplantation surgeries;

2.Intraprocedural tissue spectroscopy and imaging to unveil nerves, vessels, or tumor mass, etc., thus to reduce the chance of tissue damage, and to precisely margin tumor tissues;

3. Portable devices to monitor disease biomarker and medication adherence;

4.Developing a smart reagent with dual functions of imaging and therapy for surgical oncology;

5.Coupling intraoperative local optical spectroscopy/imaging with pre-operative tomography image for more precise surgical maneuvers.

Minimum time commitment in hours per week:

Qualifications of a Student:
Late sophomore, junior or senior students from biology/medicine, chemistry, physics, or engineering

Brief Summary of what is expected from the student:
Strong enthusiasm in conducting research
Hard working

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