Category Archives: News

Title: Toward Autonomous Microsurgery: Optical Imaging and Artificial Intelligence  

Brief Abstract: Recent advances in optical imaging and artificial intelligence are accelerating the development of next-generation robotic surgical systems. In these intelligent surgical platforms, high-resolution optical sensors and advanced neural networks are seamlessly integrated with robotic instruments to achieve performance beyond the limits of freehand human operation. At Johns Hopkins University, our laboratory, led by Jin U. Kang, has pioneered real-time three-dimensional imaging systems tailored for robotic microsurgery, with particular emphasis on optical coherence tomography (OCT). A central component of this work is the development of miniaturized OCT fiber-optic sensors that can be fully integrated into surgical instruments and robotic end-effectors. These fiber-based OCT sensors provide micron-scale, depth-resolved imaging in real time, enabling subsurface visualization of optically transparent and semi-transparent tissues during active manipulation. By combining OCT imaging with AI-driven analysis, our systems enhance the surgeon’s ability to identify and track nearly invisible tissue boundaries, maintain safe stand-off distances, detect early instrument–tissue contact, measure applied deformation, and assess depth of penetration with micron-level precision. The integration of OCT fiber sensors directly into surgical tools also enables quantitative feedback for force estimation and tissue characterization, creating a closed-loop, image-guided robotic platform. Collectively, these innovations reduce surgical risk, improve precision and safety, and expand the scope of achievable microsurgical procedures. In this talk, I will summarize our progress in OCT-based image-guided robotic surgery, highlight the role of fiber-integrated sensing technologies, and outline future directions for intelligent, autonomous surgical systems.  

My Bio: Jin U. Kang is the Jacob Suter Jammer Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Professor in the Department of Dermatology at Johns Hopkins University, where he has been a faculty member since 1998. Over the past two decades, he has built an internationally recognized research program at the intersection of photonics, biomedical optics, and translational medicine. His research focuses on the development of novel optical imaging and sensing techniques, with particular emphasis on optical coherence tomography (OCT), fiber-optic sensors, ultrafast lasers, and miniaturized photonic devices. He has pioneered high-resolution, real-time 3D OCT systems and fiber-integrated OCT probes for image-guided microsurgery and robotic surgery. His work has enabled micron-scale, depth-resolved visualization of tissue during active surgical manipulation, providing surgeons with enhanced precision, safety, and quantitative feedback. In addition to surgical guidance, his laboratory has contributed broadly to biomedical optical imaging, ophthalmic diagnostics, cancer detection, and other translational biophotonics applications. Dr. Kang has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed publications and holds numerous patents in biomedical optics and photonic instrumentation. His work has been continuously supported by federal agencies and industry, and his technologies have helped bridge the gap between laboratory innovation and clinical deployment. He has played a significant leadership role in the optics and photonics community, serving as General Chair of the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) and as a program committee member for the SPIE Biosensing group. He is a Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA), SPIE, and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.  

ABSTRACT: Despite the success of immune checkpoint blockade, therapeutic efficacy remains limited in “cold” tumors and those with complex immunosuppressive landscapes, such as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and hepatocellular carcinoma. The Ho laboratory employs high-dimensional mass cytometry and spatial-omics to characterize the cellular architecture of the tumor microenvironment (TME). Barriers to anti-tumor immunity are highlighted, specifically focusing on the interplay between T-cell exhaustion and suppressive myeloid populations. Ongoing efforts are founded on lessons from prior immunotherapeutic strategies and the identification of PTPN22 as a novel, multi-pronged therapeutic target. The latest work from the Ho laboratory demonstrates that PTPN22 abrogation can simultaneously reprogram myeloid compartments and lower T-cell activation thresholds, effectively converting immune-resistant phenotypes into sensitive ones. 

Dr. Won Jin Ho is a physician-scientist and medical oncologist at Johns Hopkins specializing in hepatobiliary and pancreatic tumor microenvironment research. He earned degrees in bioengineering from UCLA, his MD from Wayne State University, completed internal medicine residency at Case Western Reserve University, and medical oncology fellowship at Johns Hopkins. He leads an NIH-funded laboratory using high-parameter profiling of clinical biospecimens and mouse models to study mechanisms of immunotherapy response and resistance. His work has been published in Nature, Nature Cancer, Nature Immunology, JCI, and Hepatology, and recognized by AACR, ASCO, Emerson Collective, and the Harrington Discovery Institute. He also serves as Scientific Director of Mass Cytometry and Associate Director of Technology at the Johns Hopkins Convergence Institute.