“There’s not a lot of understanding as to why some people are affected cognitively by chemotherapy and some people are not. With exploring how the brain changes in a very early way with these light signals, we might be able to get a good understanding.”
From there, the researchers hope to find strategies to catch “chemo brain” earlier.
Victoria Hossack, a post-doctoral fellow working in Murugan’s lab, explained that they look for changes in brain signals that occur before the onset symptoms.
“In the context of this study, we want to see who’s going to develop the cognitive changes of chemotherapy before it starts happening so we can have an earlier intervention,” she said.
In addition to being invasive, current cancer diagnostics can be expensive.
“My dream is that this is accessible to everyone, regardless of where they’re from,” she said.
Hossack said projects like this are the reason she committed to her line of study.
“I can use the knowledge and the skills that I developed in my graduate studies and now apply them to research that will have a huge impact on a lot of people,” she said.
Murugan said the Optica funding will help the team leverage their technology for about a year, but she hopes to find funding after that.
“Optica as a foundation has really opened up a lot of my doors in understanding how the physical world blends with the biological world. This grant allows us to explore that a lot more deeply and with technology that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get,” Murugan explained.
“It gives us the room to explore light-based biomarkers, specifically for biology.”
