Centre for
Advanced Laser Applications
Main research foci of CALA
Contact:
Development of sources of high-power,
ultrashort-pulsed laser radiation for driving or assisting the diagnostic and therapeutic sources of CALA.
Thorsten Naeser
Public Relations CALA
Faculty of Physics, LMU Munich
Development and advancement of the
diagnostic and therapeutic laser-based
sources of CALA: brilliant X-rays for diagnostics from laser-accelerated electrons and brilliant laser-accerated proton
and ion pulses for particle therapy of
solid tumours.
Recognition of tumors and other chronic
diseases in their early stage of development by means of phase-contrast X-ray
imaging using compact laser-based
sources of brilliant X-rays.
Munich-Centre for
Advanced Photonics
Hans-Kopfermann-Straße 1
85748 Garching
Tel.: +49 89 32905 124
[email protected]
www.attoworld.de
www.munich-photonics.de
For further informations and detailed
scientific contacts please visit:
www.lex-photonics.de/cala/
Studies of the feasibility of early detection of cancer by observing cancer cells
in blood and volatiles in breath.
Title picture:
shows an axolotl, which is captured with
phase contrast X-ray radiography. The
animal is almost 10 centimetres long.
With this special tecnique intricacies
become visible which you could not see
with conventional X-ray technology.
© Scherer/Pfeiffer, TUM
CALA frontage design:
Brechensbauer Weinhart und
Partner Architekten, München.
Büro Übele Visuelle Kommunikation,
Stuttgart
Intense light sources
for medical sciences
A new facility for laser-based research
X-ray and particle beams with laser flashes
The development of new types of
beams for detecting and removing
tumours calls for ultrashort, intense light pulses. Light is composed
of electric and magnetic fields.
At extremely high intensities only
attainable with ultrashort flashes
from special lasers, these two
fields exert huge forces on electrons, thus ejecting them from the
atoms and accelerating them in “a
flash“ to the velocity of light.
The new laser technologies being
developed by CALA scientists will
be used to produce light pulses
with properties that are unique
in the world. They last just a few
femtoseconds (10-15 second) and
The Centre for Advanced Laser
Applications, a new facility devoted to laser-based research, will
soon strengthen Munich’s position as a leading nexus of science and technology. The project
was conceived as a collaborative
venture between Ludwig Maximilians University Munich (LMU)
and the Technical University of
Munich (TUM) in the context of
the Munich-Centre for Advanced
Photonics. The groundwork on
CALA’s future site on the Garching Campus is underway. In the
new building physicists, medical
specialists and biologists plan
to develop uniquely innovative
laser-based technologies and explore their potential applications.
CALA’s primary objective is to
identify new and cost-efficient approaches to the early diagnosis of
cancers and other chronic illnesses, with a view to maximizing
rates of cure.
The ATLAS Laser
System will be set in
the new CALA building.
The laser will then
produce pulses with
a peak power of 3000
terawatt. This power can
accelerate electrons to
high energies over a
1000-fold shorter distance than conventional
accelerators.
© Thorsten Naeser
yield an extremely high energy
within this incredibly short length
of time. When focused to a tiny
spot of a few micrometres in diameter, this unique concentration
of light energy causes hitherto
unattained forces to be exerted
on charged particles.
Electrons accelerated with this
light force can in turn produce extremely brilliant (i.e. intense and
bunched) X-ray radiation as well
as proton and ion beams. These
can detect very fine structures,
such as those of biomolecules
and tumours in the earliest stage
of growth and then eradicate
them.
Biomedical imaging with brilliant X-rays
Since its discovery more than a
hundred years ago, X-ray-radiation has become an indispensable tool in medical diagnostics.
Despite its huge success, for example in imaging bone structure,
X-ray diagnostics ultimately reaches its limits in the examination
of soft tissue, such as tumours in
healthy tissue.
Modern phase contrast X-ray
methods, which explicitly utilise the wave
character
of
X-rays, afford
a marked improvement in
image
quality.
These techniques
are now being
tested on large
synchrotron accelerators. For
the first time they also allow highprecision insight into the structure
of soft brain and breast tissue.
The intense X-rays to be produced at CALA will allow these methods to be transferred from large
accelerators to clinical practice.
This will make it possible to achieve early diagnosis of tumours by
enabling radiologists to identify
tumours just millimetres in size
that are still in the incipient stage
of growth.
The advantage of early diagnosis is that the probability of small
tumours metastasising is much
smaller. Besides early diagnosis
and subsequent therapy of cancer, the application of modern
imaging techniques with intense
X-rays also affords the prospect
of patients being subjected to a
much lower dose.
The finest details of a fly would remain invisible with
a conventional X-ray image. New laser-driven X-ray
imaging methods now allow high-resolution imaging
techniques previously only accessible with large scale
synchrotrons. © Franz Pfeiffer / Stefan Karsch
Short-pulse laser for better cancer therapy
Simulation of the dose distribution
of laser-driven protons hitting a
patient with a brain tumour. The
surrounding, healthy tissue is thereby only slightly affected by the
radiation. © Kerstin Hofmann
The second medical application
is tumour treatment by means of
laser-accelerated particle beams,
particularly proton and carbon ion
beams. The generation is similar
to that of accelerating electrons
by means of high-energy light
pulses.
Classical accelerators for particle
therapy are extensive and expensive items, and so most patients
continue to be treated with Xrays. Laser-driven accelerators
promise more cost effectiveness.
Tumour treatment with particle
beams acts much less on healthy
tissue and could thus be made
available to a much wider circle of
patients.
Early cancer detection with infrared light
The short pulse laser, which was
developed at the LMU can be used for
the detection of molecules in gases
and liquids. © Thorsten Naeser
A team of physicists, molecular biologists, and medical researchers
set out to use infrared laser light
with unprecedented intensity and
spectral coverage to analyse cells
and exhaled breath as indicators
of cancerogenesis, potentially
providing a risk-free and non-invasive method for early detection
of cancer.
Tumor cells are known to rewire
their metabolism and additionally
produce so-called ‘onco-metabolites’ that drive cancer genesis.
Some of these onco-metabolites
are soluble molecules and can diffuse into their environment. CALA
scientists will systematically study
whether such onco-metabolites
are present in the bloodstream
and exhaled breath of cancer
patients by use of world-leading
infrared technology developed
in Munich. The researchers are
planning the detection of these
molecules on the basis of their
absorption spectra. To do so, they
irradiate expired air with a train
of femtosecond infrared laser
pulses. Different molecules absorb laser light in different ways
depending on their structure, so
that their interactions with broadband (multi-colour) infrared light
provide specific fingerprints from
which one can identify the individual molecules concerned.