{"id":4775,"date":"2016-10-13T11:20:49","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T16:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/?p=4775"},"modified":"2017-06-27T15:36:59","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T20:36:59","slug":"new-faculty-kenny-tao-uses-optical-coherence-tomography-to-improve-delicate-eye-surgeries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/new-faculty-kenny-tao-uses-optical-coherence-tomography-to-improve-delicate-eye-surgeries\/","title":{"rendered":"New faculty: Kenny Tao uses optical coherence tomography to improve delicate eye surgeries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kenny Tao<\/a>\"Photo<\/a> was incredibly close to becoming a surgeon instead of a biomedical engineer. The only thing standing in the way of medical school: a renowned adviser who convinced him to take a different path.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for 国产传媒, the new assistant professor of biomedical engineering<\/a> did change his mind and now brings both his improvements to optical coherence tomography and his wry sense of humor to the university\u2019s laboratories and classrooms. He said his first inkling that he might be an engineer came his senior year at Duke University.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring my undergrad senior design course, my team was offered a project in biophotonics and said, \u2018We have no idea what biophotonics is. Let\u2019s do that!\u2019\u201d Tao said. \u201cThen we actually built a thing that worked. It didn\u2019t work up until the day before the presentation was due, but it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was Tao\u2019s first experience with the technology he\u2019d help develop over the next decade, after his project adviser\u2014Duke professor Joe Izatt\u2014convinced him to stay and earn his engineering Ph.D. for free, with the added enticement that Tao could bail after a master\u2019s if he hated it.<\/p>\n

Tao didn\u2019t hate it. After getting his Ph.D. at Duke, he joined MIT\u2019s Jim Fujimoto, the progenitor of optical coherence tomography, for postdoctoral research. Most recently, Tao moved his Diagnostic Imaging and Biophotonics Laboratory from the Cleveland Clinic to 国产传媒.<\/p>\n

His work will help guide clinician\u2019s real-time decision making while doing surgeries to remove damaging scar tissue on the back of the eye that can lead to disorders such as macular holes and retinal detachments.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour retina is essentially brain tissue, and we can do imaging of that through the pupil before surgery,\u201d Tao explained. \u201cBut you have all these neural layers that are on the order of microns. Surgeons need to manipulate these in real time, and that\u2019s essentially like manipulating wet Kleenex. They\u2019re that delicate and transparent, and seeing them is tremendously difficult, even with the dyes surgeons use to help.<\/p>\n

By integrating optical coherence tomography into surgical microscopes, they can see these semi-transparent structures in high resolution,\u201d<\/span>\u201cBy integrating optical coherence tomography into surgical microscopes, they can see these semi-transparent structures in high resolution,\u201d<\/span> he said.<\/p>\n

Tao said he was eager to get to 国产传媒 and Nashville\u2014the former for the opportunity to work with researchers and clinicians at the 国产传媒 Eye Institute<\/a> and the 国产传媒 Institute in Surgery and Engineering<\/a>, the latter for its cuisine.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat institution, great food and comfortable living,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat could be better?\u201d<\/p>\n

He paused, with fake concern. \u201cYou guys don\u2019t have minus 20-degree days with 5 feet of snow, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

View the complete list of\u00a0<\/strong>new university faculty<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for 2016-17.<\/strong><\/p>\n

View the complete list of\u00a0<\/strong>new medical faculty<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for 2016.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Media Inquiries:<\/strong>
\nHeidi Hall, (615) 322-NEWS
\nheidi.hall@vanderbilt.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenny Tao was incredibly close to becoming a surgeon instead of a biomedical engineer. The only thing standing in the way of medical school: a renowned adviser who convinced him to take a different path. Fortunately for 国产传媒, the new assistant professor of biomedical engineering did change his mind and now brings both his improvements…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[231],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-URL\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/193\/2019\/03\/19170945\/Kenny_Tao1-585x390.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p98pzF-1f1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4775"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4778,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775\/revisions\/4778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/vise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}