The Wellman Center
at Massachusetts General Hospital

The Wellman Center is an MGH thematic research center that specializes in the development and application of new technologies to advance medical science and solve clinical needs. The Center has historic strength in optics and photonics but also utilizes a broad spectrum of engineering, chemistry, physics, advanced biological techniques and computational approaches to bring solutions to patients. 

Wellman faculty collaborate broadly across multiple clinical departments at Mass General Brigham, often bringing advanced technologies to unique clinical insights provided by front-line clinicians. The Center also collaborates far beyond MGB, with a deep history of collaborative work with the Department of Defense and with other academic and research institutions. 

The wide array of applications tackled at Wellman include diagnostics and treatments that touch nearly every part of the human body. These include new tools and methods for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and cardiovascular disease, wounds and burns, hemhorrage and coagulopathy, non-opiod treatment of pain, scar remodeling, and non-invasive blood and biomarker diagnostics.

These research efforts have developed multiple platform technologies for structural and functional imaging, such as Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and Optical Frequency Domain Imaging (OFDI), Diffuse Optical Spectroscopy (DOS) and Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI). Thus far, Wellman research has created over 26 clinical innovations in use worldwide, 20 platform technologies that have multiple applications, and over 40 startup companies.  

Problems Worth Solving

Cancer – enhance cancer diagnosis and treatment outcomes with improved in vivo imaging, genetic profiling, and innovative therapeutics. Treat skin cancer and neurofibromatosis tumors.

Cardiovascular Disease - improve early detection and management of coronary artery disease, circulatory shock, and heart failure using new imaging and diagnostic technologies

Circulatory Shock - improve real-time diagnosis and monitoring of critical physiological parameters like tissue perfusion, oxygenation, and respiratory function

Infections and Infectious Disease – improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases including influenza, sepsis, and multi-drug resistant infections with better vaccination and novel therapeutic strategies including blue light anti-microbial therapy

In vivo Imaging – develop high-speed, high-resolution in vivo microscopy techniques to enable functional imaging at the single-cell and subcellular level, including endoscopic and intravascular applications

Light-based therapies - Improve protocols, delivery mechanisms and thereapeutic parameters of photodynamic therapy (PDT), photobiomodulation, and fractional laser treatments for consistent and reliable patient outcomes.

Pain Management – develop non-opioid approaches to manage acute and chronic pain safely and effectively

Performance & Recovery – enhance rehabilitation medicine and injury recovery protocols to improve physical readiness and long-term performance, with a focus on military populations

Precision Surgery – improve precision of surgical repair of nerves, tendons, and blood vessels with greater precision with advanced imaging and therapeutic techniques

Skin conditions and vascular anomalies – treat “port wine” birth marks, improve therapy for inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis and vitiligo, remove unwanted tattoos and hair, minimize scarring

Sleep Apnea - improve real-time diagnosis and monitoring of critical physiological parameters like tissue perfusion, oxygenation, and respiratory function

Transplantation - increase transplant success and reduce rejection using tissue replication, autologous transplantation methods, and sensor technologies

Trauma – triage patients, address and minimizing hemorrhage, detect and treat traumatic brain injury, and hearing loss

Vision – improve and protect vision with treatments for wet macular degeneration and glaucoma

Wound Healing - accelerate wound healing, improve functional outcomes, and minimize long-term scarring