Asst. Prof. Zeinab Hajjarian’s Work Is Supported by NIH
10/23/2024
By Edwin L. Aguirre
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women worldwide and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in American women, according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
Increased awareness and screening have led to the detection of early-stage small lesions. Accurately delineating the malignant tumor during surgical removal is likewise important so that as much breast tissue as possible can be preserved.
But this can be a challenge, especially to those with dense breast tissues. It is estimated that more than 15% of women who undergo breast surgery have to return for additional surgery due to the inadequate removal of the malignant tumor and the risk of local recurrence.
“This creates a significant physical and mental burden on the patients and health care resources,” says Asst. Prof. Zeinab Hajjarian of the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Hajjarian is one of the UML faculty researchers on campus who is working to improve breast cancer imaging technology, which is a vital tool to help guide surgeons. Her project is supported by a three-year, $400,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, with Hajjarian as principal investigator.
The researcher hopes her effort will contribute to more accurate prognoses and ultimately improve patient outcomes and survival rates.
Hajjarian’s innovative optical imaging technique, called laser speckle rheological microscopy, would allow for rapid, non-contact, high-resolution mapping of the viscoelastic properties within the malignant tissue. She says by identifying the micromechanical features that are shared between invasive diseases, this approach would help differentiate the tumor from the surrounding healthy tissues.
“Light reflected from the tumor could capture information on its mechanical properties such as stiffness,” explains Hajjarian, who joined UMass Lowell from the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Wellman Center for Photomedicine in 2023.
“Our goal is to optimize the resolution of our laser technique to reduce imaging time and identify specific mechanical features that indicate invasive behavior,” she says.
Assisting her with the lab research were Alyre Blazon-Brown, a UML master’s student in physics, and Kayma Konecny, an undergraduate student from the University of Arizona’s Wyant College of Optical Sciences in Tucson.