Dr. Achilefu Samuel, a Nigerian-born medic, academic and inventor is the brain behind cancer-identifying goggles, a device that has aided in the treatment and removal of cancerous cells since it’s invention. He and his team developed a high tech florescence goggle to assist surgeons single out cancerous cells during surgery.
He is a graduate from the University of Nancy in France where he received a PhD in molecular and materials chemistry. He also has postdoctoral training in oxygen transport mechanisms from the University of Oxford, England. In 1993, he joined the Discovery Research Department at Mallinckrodt Medical Inc in the United States. In 2001, he joined the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University.
To remove cancerous cells, surgeons often have to remove excess tissue around the growth but do not always manage to get all the cancerous tissue out. This leads to multiple procedures to completely remove the cancer. However, with these cancer goggles developed by Dr Achilefu and his team, surgeons are able to see precisely which tissues to cut out, all in one operation.
This invention has led to him receiving the St. Louis award at the Newman Education center on June 23 2015.
He has served as a Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, Professor of Radiography, Biomedical Engineering, Biochemistry, Molecular Biophysics and the Director of Optical Radiology Lab (ORL) at Washington University in St. Louis, among others.
Dr. Achilefu is on the board of trustees of Loma India University and also on the scientific advisory board of NCI’s intramural molecular imaging program. He is also the editor-in-chief of Current Analytical Chemistry and on editorial boards of the Journal of Biomedical Optics and Scientific Reports.
