Jefferson Lab's Detector Development for Bio-Medical Research Applications

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) is one of the Department of Energy's federally funded research and development centers. Physicists from around the globe utilize Jefferson Lab's unique particle accelerator, known as the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, to probe the building blocks of matter at the quark-gluon scale. In addition, the lab capitalizes on its unique technologies and expertise to explore ways of applying nuclear physics principles and technologies to societal needs. The Radiation Detector and Imaging Group has for several years been directing advances in nuclear physics detector technology to applications outside of nuclear physic research. I will discuss radioisotope based molecular imaging modalities and elaborate on how the group has leveraged nuclear physics to bring advances to nuclear medicine imaging, medical research and plant biology research. Examples include a novel detector system developed to improve breast cancer detection, a surgical imaging tool to aide cancer surgery, and an imaging technology that allows researchers to dynamically image the products of plant photosynthesis.