Dr. Keng Chou

Keng C. Chou received his PhD in Physics from the University of California at Riverside. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley from 2001 to 2004. He is currently an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of British Columbia. 

Research Focus

Dr. Chou's research is focused on super-resolution microscopy and image processing algorithms. He develops high-resolution optical microscopes to study biological problems. The resolution of optical microscopy has been limited to ~ 200 nm because of the diffraction limit. Recent developments in super-resolution microscopy has enabled scientists to resolve features as small as 10 nm and visualize cellular structures in unprecedented detail. Their current research is focused on virus-host interactions.

Example Project 

“Development of a Confocal Endoscope for Gastrointestinal Cancer Diagnosis”

In recent years, various optical microscopy techniques have been developed for non-destructive imaging of biological tissues, including optical coherence tomography, reflectance-mode confocal microscopy, fluorescence-mode confocal microscopy, and multiphoton excitation microscopy. Each imaging modality has its own advantages and disadvantages. Previously, confocal microscopy has shown progress in skin cancer imaging and demonstrated potential in other cancer diagnosis. However, moving confocal imaging modalities into endoscopy applications is challenging in that miniaturized catheter probes have to be developed to pass through the endoscope instrument channel that is a few millimeter diameter in size. In this research, we aim to use MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) technology to make a miniature confocal optical probe that will produce histology-like cross sectional images and 3D images of tissue in vivo for GI (gastrointestinal) cancer diagnosis.

Research Keywords

Super-Resolution Optical Microscopy, Cancer Diagnosis, Virus-Host Interactions