Laura Marcu
Papers
8
Total Citations
280
H-Index
5
About
Laura Marcu is a pioneering biomedical engineer whose research sits at the intersection of optical imaging, surgical guidance, and oncology. She is best known for developing and clinically translating **fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIm)** — a label-free, real-time optical technique that distinguishes cancerous from healthy tissue based on the intrinsic fluorescence properties of biological molecules. Her most influential work has focused on intraoperative guidance for head and neck cancers, demonstrating that FLIm can reliably delineate tumor margins during oral, oropharyngeal, and robotic-assisted surgeries without the need for exogenous contrast agents. Marcu's contributions span both engineering innovation and clinical application. She pioneered the integration of FLIm with the da Vinci robotic surgical platform, enabling augmented reality–guided cancer resection — a significant achievement given the absence of tactile feedback in robotic surgery. Her studies, involving dozens of patients and tens of thousands of tissue measurements, have garnered over 280 citations across her most notable publications. More recently, her group has incorporated machine learning to build anatomy-specific classification models, further enhancing diagnostic precision. Marcu's work represents a meaningful step toward smarter, real-time surgical decision-making that could reduce tumor recurrence and improve patient outcomes.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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