Musings from The Power List: Jürgen Popp

What are your main research aims?
 

We are working on optical health technologies, i.e. researching optical methods for unmet needs in medical diagnosis and therapy. In doing so we also aim for translating the researched methods into the clinics.

Which analytical frontier in human health and disease are you most excited about?
 

I am most excited about combining the manifold possibilities artificial intelligence (AI) offers with biophotonics – Raman-approaches for two medical fields, for example, which require new diagnostic and therapeutic methods, namely for an automated intraoperative tumor diagnosis or a rapid point-of-care infectious diagnosis. AI might be the missing link to finally get biomedical analytical approaches into routine clinical applications. 

Can analytical science make personalized medicine a reality? If so, how?
 

I am absolutely convinced that analytical science can make personalized medicine reality. In this context, I would like to mention an example from our research here in Jena:

Let's assume the following situation: A patient is at the doctor's and after a brief medical history, the doctor decides that it is a bacterial infection and prescribes a specific antibiotic. The question now arises as to how the doctor knows that it is a bacterial infection and not a fungal or viral infection, or, if it really is a bacterial infection – that the bacteria causing it are not resistant to the prescribed antibiotic. It would be very advantageous here if, before prescribing an antibiotic or taking an antibiotic, a precise personalized diagnosis could be made in the sense of a rapid identification of the pathogen (virus, fungus or bacterium) and a characterization of its resistance profile, which would then be followed by targeted personalized therapy.

In recent years, we have shown that biophotonics such as Raman spectroscopy offers great potential for personalized management of infections, i.e. for understanding the immune response, rapidly identifying the pathogen responsible for the infection and its resistance profile and evaluating the success of treatment. In this context, the application of Raman spectroscopy in combination with advanced AI-based spectral analysis is proving to be crucial for overcoming these challenges. The integration of Raman spectroscopy into point-of-care approaches encompasses the entire diagnostic process – from sample collection to the provision of final diagnostic results. In my opinion, our work on Raman spectroscopy for infectious diagnosis is a perfect example of how analytical spectroscopy provides solutions for clinical diagnostic applications for timely personalized therapy.

How will analytical science transform how we diagnose and treat over the next 20 years?
 

Demographic change, together with the expected shortage of doctors, will pose major challenges for healthcare in Germany, for example. In this context, new telemedical approaches are becoming increasingly important. This is precisely where light-based analytical (especially spectroscopic) methods in combination with AI will come into play and, in my opinion, play an increasingly important role in the future in the diagnosis or monitoring of a wide range of vital functions. 

The vision is a system like the tricorder used in the science fiction series Star Trek. As far as the monitoring of vital functions such as pulse or blood pressure is concerned, this is already possible with optical analytical approaches integrated into smartwatches. I am sure that the portfolio of optical methods integrated into mobile phones, smartwatches, etc. for determining other vital parameters or for diagnosing diseases (see the example of infection diagnostics using Raman point-of-care spectroscopy above) will expand significantly in the future and thus relieve the burden on general practitioners.

How would you spend a $1 billion research grant?
 

The Leibniz Centre for Photonics in Infection Research is located at Jena University Hospital close to the clinical facilities and has an "initial reception facility" in the hospital. It complements existing technologies with new, commercially unavailable photonic methods. In the future, both scientific and industrial users will have access to a wide range of unique light-based methods, together with the necessary technologies to accelerate the implementation of new diagnostic and treatment methods for infectious diseases. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding the development of the LPI's technological infrastructure from 2021 and is investing around 50 million euros in five basic technology projects. 

The basic technologies include: 

1. Multi-dimensional, multimodal, intelligent imaging platforms
2. Photonic interaction assays for POCT/high-throughput platforms
3. Artificial intelligence for diagnostics and therapy
4. Highly parallel profiling of the host response to life-threatening infections
5. Innovative molecular and biochemical assays for rapid diagnostics, drug development and new therapy concepts.

In these projects, researchers from the four supporting institutions in Jena are working together to advance the technical maturity of these technologies (TRL – Technology Readiness Level) for use in the LPI. The LPI, which has emerged from Jena's unique interdisciplinary research network for optical health technologies, can serve as a model for tackling other medical challenges such as cancer and neurodegenerative diseases and overcoming the "valley of death" in clinical implementation. 

With a $1 billion research grant, I would expand the LPI principle to create an infrastructure for translating optical and photonic approaches for comprehensive disease diagnosis and therapy.

What is the biggest challenge facing the field right now?
 

Optical health technologies face technological challenges, but these can often be addressed through interdisciplinary research as outlined below. Currently, the biggest obstacle is regulatory approval for clinical trials, particularly with our Raman instrumentation. This process demands substantial logistical and financial resources, often beyond the reach of academic groups. The high risk of new technology further deters industry and commercial investors.

The EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR) complicates the testing of optical approaches in preclinical or clinical studies, posing significant challenges for translational research. Despite promising proof-of-principle studies, photonic technologies like Raman still need to demonstrate their effectiveness in large-scale clinical trials. Funding for these validation studies is crucial to create marketable products.

The LPI (see https://lpi-jena.de/en/) mentioned above, shows what such translational research can look like in concrete terms. LPI accelerates the development and validation of new diagnostic and therapeutic optical technologies. Located at Jena University Hospital, LPI supports national and international users, providing access to advanced light-based and molecular biological methods. The German ministry of education and research (BMBF) has invested around 50 million euros in establishing LPI’s technological infrastructure. LPI's unique interdisciplinary network aims to overcome the “valley of death” in clinical translation. With its comprehensive approach, LPI is poised to transform optical health technologies into practical clinical applications.

What is the most exciting development or emerging trend in analytical science today?
 

Here I would like to mention the fantastic possibilities offered by artificial intelligence (AI) for molecular (micro)spectroscopy to extract more and deeper information out of the spectroscopic data. The fruitful interplay between artificial intelligence (AI) and molecular spectroscopy has only just begun. There are great synergies between optics and AI, which are just being tapped in the context of molecular (micro)spectroscopy. Molecular (micro)spectroscopy forms an ideal platform for the application of AI. First and foremost, is the automated interpretation of large data sets. Analyzing spectroscopic or (micro)spectroscopic data sets with powerful AI methods instead of the naked eye opens entirely new possibilities in the derivation of secondary data and conclusions from the primary information. In particular, the field of "Explainable AI" should be mentioned here, i.e., the exploration of visualization concepts that will change the black-box character of nonlinear AI methods to interpretable models. 

What's missing from the analytical toolbox?
 

I would say all the fantastic possibilities AI offers is the missing part to finally pave the way for many current researched analytical approaches in general and optical or spectroscopic approaches in particular to be translated into routine applications.

Tell me about an important problem that could be tackled through interdisciplinary work.
 

Optical health technologies is a prime example of interdisciplinary research and requires the interaction of a wide range of disciplines, such as chemists, physicists, physicians, computer scientists, engineers, etc. One of the most important lessons we have learnt as technologists over the last 20-25 years is the need to involve the end user, i.e. the medical profession, in research from the outset. There is no point in researching a "cool" optical analytical method that is not needed clinically. Translational optical analytical research must always be driven by unmet medical need and requires the successful interdisciplinary interaction of technologists and clinicians from the outset. That is what we are also aiming for with our research – translate the researched optical methods into clinical applications.

What's the most memorable piece of advice you've ever received?
 

The path to becoming a professor and thus conducting independent and free research is often a long and rocky one. I can only say that it has paid off to take this path. What I have learnt and what my doctoral supervisor Prof. Dr Wolfgang Kiefer has also given me along the way is to learn from defeats and frustrations and not to give up. I can give this advice to every young scientist to not give up and to turn frustrations or defeats into the opposite.

Jürgen Popp is Chair for Physical Chemistry, Friedrich Schiller University Jena; and Scientific Director Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technologies e.V., Jena, Germany