Projects

• An understanding of the fundamental principles underlying IR spectral discrimination
• Lipidomic Analysis of Metastatic Prostate Cancer
• Optical Tweezers and Near IR for cancer diagnosis
• Study of molecular metastatic behaviour of prostate cancer cells using SR FTIR microscopy
• Integrating Clinical Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy with digital pathology and AI: CLIRPath-AI
• Artificial intelligence driven infrared spectroscopy for improved prostate cancer risk stratification
• OPTIR of cells and Tissue.

Research Group(s)

• Analytical Science
• Biorefinery Engineering
• Complex Chemicals and Biological Systems
• Instrumentation and Analytical Science
• Nanomaterials and Interfaces

Research Institutes

• Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre
• Photon Science

Peter Gardner is currently Professor of Analytical and Biomedical Spectroscopy in the school of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, based in the Photon Science Institute. His research interests revolve round vibrational spectroscopy with focus on analytical and bioanalytical/biomedical spectroscopy. Peter obtained his BSc in Chemistry from the University of East Anglia before completing his PhD in Physical Chemistry in 1988 at the same institution. This was followed by two successful postdoctoral research appointments at the Fritz-Haber Institute der Max-Planck Gesellschaft in Berlin (1988-92) and then the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge (1992-1994). In 1994 he Joined the Chemistry Department at UMIST as a Lecturer and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2000. In 2004 upon the merger to form The University of Manchester he moved to the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science as part of the Instrumentation and Analytical Science group.

In 2001 he moved into the field of bioanalytical spectroscopy, particularly infrared microspectroscopy and this has become the main focus of his research. He has now an internationally recognised biospectroscopy group which has focused on the use of infrared spectroscopy in the study of a range of diseases, particularly prostate and other urological cancers. In collaboration with the Paterson institute for Cancer Research (now Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute) it has been shown that infrared microspectroscopy can be used to distinguish different grades of cancer within tissue biopsy samples and is currently involved in developing an automated diagnostic system using infrared spectroscopy to augment routine histological pathology. Recently his group have been interested in unravelling spectral artefacts associated with single cell spectra. In collaboration with groups in Dublin and Norway his group have developed scattering correction algorithms that are now used worldwide. In his latest work he is leading efforts in the UK to bring together spectral pathology,  digital pathology and AI to develop better diagnostic and prognostic markers for cancer.