Speakers - CRDWC 2025

Biography

Dr. Frederick H. Silver is a Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Professor at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He did his Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering at M.I.T. with Dr. Ioannis Yannas, the inventor of the Integra artificial skin, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in Developmental Medicine at Mass General Hospital in Boston, MA with Dr. Robert L. Trelstad, a connective tissue pathologist. Dr. Silver invented a new technique termed vibrational optical coherence tomography (VOCT) in his lab at Rutgers. US and European patents have been granted on VOCT to Rutgers on vibrational evaluation of materials and tissues. The issued patent has been licensed to OptoVibronex, LLC., a startup company Dr. Silver and Lisa Silver co-founded. This technology can provide a non-invasive “virtual biopsy” of tissues, including skin cancers and ocular tissues. This technology can be used with telemedicine to provide images and quantitative mechanovibrational data that, along with AI, can be used to provide information to make personalized medical diagnoses remotely. His interests include applying new engineering techniques that can be used to assess the structure and properties of the extracellular matrix in health and disease and the role of mechanobiology in tissue mechanical homeostasis. The US FDA has issued a breakthrough device designation to OptoVibronex to facilitate the approval process and assist the dermatologist in identifying the margins and depth of skin lesions noninvasively. Dr. Silver has published over 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers, four biomaterials and biomedical engineering textbooks, and over 20 patents issued and pending. He has taught biomedical engineering students at Boston University, the University of Minnesota, and Rutgers for over 40 years. He is a section editor for Biomaterials for the MDPI Journal Biomolecules.