Daniel L. Farkas, PhD Vice Chair of Research, Surgery Director, Minimially Invasive Surgical Technologies Laboratory
Email: daniel.farkas@cshs.org Phone: (310) 423-7746 Fax: (310) 423-7707

Academic Appointments

Awards and Activities

Research Focus

By strategic interdisciplinarity applied to translational research, develop new, minimally invasive approaches that could change the way diagnosis is achieved and surgery is performed, yielding advanced, safe, individualized patient care. Concentrate on innovative methods that enable more precise treatments, by integrating in vivo imaging systems into a digital/robotic OR environment. Applications include cancer, regenerative medicine, neurosciences and heart disease.

Research Contributions

Leader in use confocal microscopy for quantitative live cell work. Developed multimode microscopy for cellular and molecular imaging. Demonstrated first point spread function engineering method (standing wave) for superresolution microscopy. Developed hyperspectral bioimaging and applied it to pathology, in vivo imaging of early cancers, neuro-biology and stem cell behavior. Translational molecular imaging program now addressing preclinical and clinical goals by coupling novel detection of abnormalities to their treatment, spatially and temporally.

Current investigations include:

New optical bioimaging methods (superresolution, heterodyned coherence tomography, parametrically amplified NIR).
Elastic scattering, confocal, multiphoton, lifetime, spectral, multimode preclinical imaging and endoscopy for minimally invasive image-guided surgery. Early cancer detection, Hirschsprung's and Alzheimer's Disease, ALS. In vivo chemo-therapy assessment. DNA methylation imaging for cancer drug screening, regenerative medicine. Stem cell research (hematopoietic, hair, liver; monitoring in vivo). Surgical safety, robotics. Digital Operating Room of the Future.

Selected Publications

1. Farkas DL, Baxter G, DeBiasio RL, Gough A, Nederlof MA, Pane D, Pane J, Patek DR, Ryan KW, Taylor DL: Multimode light microscopy and the dynamics of molecules, cells, and tissues. Annu. Rev. Physiol., 55: 785-817, 1993
2. Bailey B, Farkas DL, Taylor DL, Lanni F: Enhancement of axial resolution in fluorescence microscopy by standing-wave excitation. Nature, 366(6450): 44-8, 1993
3. Wachman ES, Niu W, Farkas DL: AOTF microscope for imaging with increased speed and spectral versatility. Biophys. J., 73(3): 1215-22, 1997
4. Burton K, Farkas DL: Telemicroscopy. Net progress. Nature, 391(6667): 540-1, 1998
5. Pan Y, Lavelle JP, Bastacky SI, Meyers S, Pirtskhalaishvili G, Zeidel ML, Farkas DL: Detection of tumorigenesis in rat bladders with optical coherence tomography. Medical physics, 28(12): 2432-40, 2001
6. Farkas DL: Invention and commercialization in optical bioimaging. Nat. Biotechnol., 21(11): 1269-71, 2003