Multiplexed fibre optic sensing in the distal lung

Proteus is a major EPSRC funded ‘Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration’ involving three partner Universities, some 18 post-doctoral researchers and 20 PhD students across 10 research groups. Pulmonary infection and inflammation account for a massive burden of disease and death in the world, yet despite this, very little is known about the processes that drive lung disease. A significant hurdle has been the lack of tools and approaches that are able to interrogate and sense the biology of the gas-exchanging (alveolar) regions of the human lung in situ.

Work at the QMRI Hub at the Royal Infirmary on fibre optic spectroscopy systems brings together the technologies from across the project and applies them to biological models. Novel measurement techniques take advantage of bespoke multicore fibres combined with customised chemical sensors. Proteus single photon detector arrays exploit additional dimensions of the probe signals. This talk will summarise how these Proteus technologies have been combined to overcome technical challenges and offer enhanced spectroscopic measurements through fibre in biological systems with the aim of aiding the clinician with diagnosis in the distal lung.