A laser focus on melanoma

When Mihaela Balu was interviewing for a postdoctoral position nearly two decades ago, she would describe the kind of training she was looking for, and nearly everyone she talked to nationwide said, "You should go to Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic." Fortunately for UC Irvine, she did.

Now an associate professor of dermatology and biomedical engineering, Balu and her team have developed a device that uses a low-power infrared laser to scan beneath the skin surface at a cellular level. The goal is to better detect early signs of melanoma - without biopsy - and to monitor the effectiveness of skin treatments. Balu has received several National Institutes of Health grants as well as funding from the Department of Defense: "They have soldiers in the field exposed to sun," she notes.

With the device now in clinical trials, Balu says that none of this could have happened without federal support. "Those grants give us the ability to attract the best talent, and it's important to have talented, passionate, dedicated people driving the research," she says.

The competition for top-quality researchers is fierce, as private industry can offer better compensation. "I'm very fortunate to work with an exceptional team," Balu says. "Within our larger group, we have a core set of people whose expertise is essential to our long-term success. It's important to retain that core. We don't want to hire talented people for a few years, lose funding and be forced to rebuild. Our goal is to maintain a stable foundation."

Balu, a physicist and engineer by training, leads a team that includes two other physicists, a biologist, a chemist and a biomedical engineer. This broad range of skills is powerful in a setting where research shares the clinical space, something she notes is extremely rare.

"It allows us to track the performance of the devices we build, evaluate their limitations and get them back to the lab for design improvements," she says.

The device - known as the fast, large-area, multiphoton exoscope - is wheeled into a clinical research room and connected to a small metal ring taped to a patient's skin to ensure stability. A laser is used to excite molecules, allowing the FLAME to form detailed images of the cells and fibers underneath.

"The scan takes about 10 to 15 minutes right now, but the team is striving to shorten it to 5," Balu says. "We don't have technicians running studies; we run the devices on patients ourselves. It's the only way to understand what needs to be improved."

The goal? Being able to diagnose skin conditions without cutting and to monitor the success of various therapies, specifically immunotherapies for metastatic melanoma.

"We're tracking the response at a cellular level to see when treatment is working or not," Balu says. "That allows us to give feedback so therapies can be tailored to each individual."

This means that patients make fewer trips to the doctor and get earlier detection and more specific treatment plans.

This year, Balu's team is moving the device into new space on the recently completed UCI Health - Irvine campus.

"When I first started bringing complex technology like this into the clinic, we were squeezed into a storage room," she says. "And now we'll have two research rooms in the new building. That's success for me."

It's this federally funded research and much more like it that keep UC Irvine moving forward and advancing its status. The campus has been ranked as one of the top 10 public universities in the country for more than a decade.

"I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to build my work and my career here," Balu says. "I love the multidisciplinary culture and collaborative environment."