Alex Thompson

Biography

Alex is a post-doctoral research associate working in the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, in the Faculty of Engineering. His research interests centre on the application of optical microscopy and spectroscopy to a range of biomedical problems. Alex completed his Ph.D. in the Physics department at Imperial, during which he worked on the development of novel endoscopic instruments for cancer diagnosis (an adaptive optics-based endomicroscope and a time-resolved fluorescence spectrometer coupled to an optical fibre probe). After completing his Ph.D. he took up a post-doctoral role in the Chemistry department, studying protocells, amyloid materials and E. coli using fluorescence lifetime imaging of viscosity sensitive fluorescent dyes. His current research in the Hamlyn Centre is focussed on the development of miniaturised, wearable or implantable optical sensors for the diagnosis of surgical site infection and for the fabrication of feedback mechanisms in micro-scale surgical robots.

Research Interest

cancer diagnosis