Longitudinal intravital imaging of mouse placenta.

Synthetic Virology & Gene Therapy

Liping Feng, MD's research has focused on understanding the mechanisms of pregnancy complications associated with placental development. These works are translated then to the clinical care of women through studies dedicated to identify risk factors and novel biomarkers for early prediction and prevention of adverse birth outcomes.

Dr. Feng devotes her entire career to improving pregnancy outcomes through innovative research. Dr. Feng conducts both basic science/laboratory research, as well as participates in clinical studies. Her laboratory has focused on understanding the mechanisms of placenta-originated pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and still birth, which are important causes of perinatal and neonates’ mortality and morbidity. Currently, she has three lines of investigation focused on the roles of inflammation/infection, cell aging, and environmental exposure in placental development and subsequent pregnancy complications.

In addition, Dr. Feng has established an international collaboration in Global Women’s Health. She has affiliated with the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) and participates in a DGHI research. She has an interest in DGHI education, and service or policy initiatives, including mentoring and teaching graduate and professional students on fieldwork and research.

Dr. Shen’s research interests lie at precision medicine and systems biology. His lab integrates engineering, computational and biological techniques to study cancer, stem cells, microbiota and the nervous system in the gut. This multidisciplinary work has been instrumental in initiating several translational clinical trials in precision therapy. He is the director of the Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Health (DAP) and a core member of the Center for Genomics and Computational Biology (GCB).

Our mission at PI-Lab is to develop state-of-the-art photoacoustic tomography (PAT) technologies and translate PAT advances into diagnostic and therapeutic applications, especially in functional brain imaging and early cancer theranostics. PAT is the most sensitive modality for imaging rich optical absorption contrast over a wide range of spatial scales at high speed, and is one of the fastest growing biomedical imaging technologies. Using numerous endogenous and exogenous contrasts, PAT can provide high-resolution images at scales covering organelles, cells, tissues, organs, small-animal organisms, up to humans, and can reveal tissue’s anatomical, functional, metabolic, and even histologic properties, with molecular and neuronal specificity.

At PI-Lab, we develop PAT technologies with novel and advanced imaging performance, in terms of spatial resolutions, imaging speed, penetration depth, detection sensitivity, and functionality. We are interested with all aspects of PAT technology innovations, including efficient light illumination, high-sensitivity ultrasonic detection, super-resolution PAT, high-speed imaging acquisition, novel PA genetic contrast, and precise image reconstruction. On top of the technological advancements, we are devoted to serve the broad life science and medical communities with matching PAT systems for various research and clinical needs. With its unique contrast mechanism, high scalability, and inherent functional and molecular imaging capabilities, PAT is well suited for a variety of pre-clinical applications, especially for studying tumor angiogenesis, cancer hypoxia, and brain disorders; it is also a promising tool for clinical applications in procedures such as cancer screening, melanoma staging, and endoscopic examination.