Our group works on a broad range of research activities to develop optical systems for the clinical detection of cancer. We develop and use stochastic modeling techniques to describe the basic physics of light propagation in turbid media such as tissue. Understanding light propagation in tissue is essential for designing optical systems and algorithms for tissue spectroscopy and imaging. Our group also engineers optical systems including specialized fiber-optic probes for in vivo optical spectroscopy. Additionally, we actively pursue the development of mathematical algorithms for feature extraction and classification of the spectroscopic signals. We validate the effectiveness of our technologies through optical microscopy studies of cell and tissue culture models, small animal imaging and in actual clinical trials. The latter studies are done collaboratively with investigators in the biological and clinical sciences. Our research is currently funded by the NCI, NIBIB and DOD.