Focusing the Lens on Medicine
Few people can say they have turned their favorite childhood hobby into a career. But Weili Lin, Ph.D., still spends his days taking pictures, just as he did as a kid. Only now the images he captures are of the developing brain, not of rocks and dragonflies.
Lin, director of the UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center (also known as “BRIC”), is using his passion for photography to devise innovative approaches to capture the body’s internal structures.
Few people can say they have turned their favorite childhood hobby into a career. But Weili Lin, Ph.D., still spends his days taking pictures, just as he did as a kid. Only now the images he captures are of the developing brain, not rocks and dragonflies.
Lin, director of the UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center (also known as “BRIC”), is using his passion for photography to devise innovative approaches to capture the body’s internal structures.
“There are so many different parameters you can play with. Just like when you take pictures you can adjust the parameters to see things in a completely different way,” explained Lin, who is a professor in radiology, neurology, biomedical engineering and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
Though his predilection lies with “micro” photography -- photographs illustrating minute inner workings of the human body, such as cells dividing – Lin says a combination of luck and chance brought him over to the more “macro” side of the field. He was studying biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve when magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) first emerged onto the scene, and he was enticed by its ability to gain a glimpse into real-life (“in vivo”) situations without the dangers of conventional imaging technologies that used radiation. Today, doctors use MRI to help diagnose a variety of ailments, such as torn ligaments, strokes, multiple sclerosis and brain tumors.
Lin chose to focus this powerful lens on the brain, yet another decision dating back to his childhood. As a boy, Lin had loved to read about the brain and was excited to learn that so much of the organ was still uncharted. His imagination ran wild with the possibilities those unknowns presented.
“I remember watching a cartoon about a technology that can load everything that you need to know onto your glasses, and you can just put them on and then fly an airplane because you have all the knowledge you need right there,” laughed Lin. “Or if instead of being a pilot you needed to be a mathematician, you just put another pair of glasses on. It got me thinking about the brain, so it is no wonder that I eventually ended up in the neurological area.”
Sci-fi glasses aside, a lot has been learned about the brain since Lin and other like-minded biomedical engineers have entered the field. Neuroscientists once thought that humans utilize only about 20 percent of our brains, but functional MRI studies have indicated that most people use far more than that. They also once believed that people are born with a fixed number of brain cells that can only decrease over time, but studies have shown that new brain cells can grow even later in life. So the picture of the human brain is getting much brighter, and more clear all the time.
Lin’s own research has used the latest imaging technology to chart the course of brain development in some of the tiniest of research subjects, babies from 2 weeks old to 2 years of age. Propelled by a $50K pilot award from the NC Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute, Lin has found evidence that several major neural wiring connections may be established in babies earlier than what scientists previously thought.
“Everyone knows that the brain changes so much within the first year, but the details of these changes, and how they match with behaviors, are still largely unknown,” said Lin. “Programs like Head Start give early education to children between ages 3 and 5, but that may be too late because the young brain has changed so much already. We need to study this more, and imaging really offers an objective and scientific way to understand brain growth.”
As a member of NC TraCS, Lin is part of a nationwide effort fueled by the NIH’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) to more rapidly translate basic discoveries into interventions that can improve human health. No doubt, technology plays a big part in speeding up the pace of research, but Lin doesn’t want to overstate its place in the bigger picture.
“The technological innovation is being stimulated by a desire to simplify a process so we can better understand certain biological aspects,” said Lin. “But if we don’t understand the biological questions in the first place we will never be able to formulate how the technology should be modified. So I think it is a two-way street.”
Lin plans to extend his own studies to see how development could differ between normal subjects and those at risk for neurological disorders, such as schizophrenia or autism. He jokes that he wishes there were 48 hours in a day so he could dedicate 24 hours to running the BRIC and 24 to doing his own research.
On the occasions when he does have extra time on his hands, Lin spends it taking pictures with his 16-year-old son. Lin says though his son tends to ignore his lectures on the technical aspects of optics, shutter speeds and focus, his snapshots are more artistic and interesting than any of Lin’s own work.
“You can perfect your technique in a way that enables you to take good pictures, but that artistic eye that empowers you to take great pictures is just something that you are born with,” said Lin. “It is the same thing with math -- you have to have an eye not just for the conceptual part but also the abstract part of the math to be able to see it from all different angles.”
