Photo News
- 2019.10.22
- 960
Prof. Jang Jin-ho’s Research Team at Sogang Institute Advanced Technology
Selected for ICT Creative Task at Samsung Science & Technology Project
to Receive Total of KRW 1.4 Billion for 4 Years
Prof. Jang Jin-ho’s research team at Sogang Institute Advanced Technology (SIAT) at Sogang University has finally been selected for an ICT creative task at Samsung Science & Technology Project that provides support in the latter half of 2017.
The Samsung Science & Technology Project which started in 2013 is a program to select excellent tasks three times a year in three areas of research of fundamental science, materials technology, and ICT, thereby supporting and nurturing future technologies in the Republic of Korea by providing a total fund of KRW 1 trillion 500 billion for 10 years. For the latter half of 2017, 14 tasks for the fundamental science and 23 tasks for the materials technology and ICT have been selected including the task of “development of ultrasound-assisted confocal microscopy for deep tissue imaging” by Prof. Jang Jin-ho, and a total of KRW 53.1 billion will be provided.
The selected task of Prof. Jang is to develop an original technology to settle the issue of a low image depth which is an inborn limitation of the conventional confocal microscope, aiming to develop a technology to increase an image depth of a confocal microscope without a lowered image resolution by using ultrasound wave. A confocal microscope is a device that focuses and irradiates light to a living tissue and that uses a reflected light signal, thereby providing structure information of a microtissue such as a cell with a high-resolution, high-contrast image. Currently, the confocal microscope is the most broadly used as a three-dimensional high-resolution imaging technique for life science researches and disease diagnosis including images of cancer, brain tissues, etc. However, though a high-resolution, high-contrast image provided by the confocal microscope is available only at a depth in which light can be focused, the depth for focusing light is only hundreds of micrometers due to optical scattering in a living tissue. Thus, it is difficult to image a tissue in a deeper part. To resolve the issue, Prof. Jang Jin-ho’s research team will develop an original technology for a confocal microscope, a technique that is expected to increase a depth of light penetration by temporarily changing characteristics of a medium to minimize optical scattering in the medium in which the light proceeds, using an ultrasound energy recently developed by the team.
The proposed technology is an original technology with a new concept, which can not only remarkably broaden an application area of a confocal microscope that has limitations triggered by a low image depth but also expand the application area of the conventional optical image and treatment technologies that have limitations in use because of a low depth of light focusing. Thus, the technology has a very great impact to satisfy unmet clinical needs. If the technology is commercialized, one can easily enter into and expand a share in the existing optical image market, an area that is mostly occupied by overseas technological leading companies, thereby creating a new market and leading the relevant industries in the whole world.