ABOUT

Christopher Contag is the Director of MSU’s Institute for Quantitative Health Science & Engineering (IQ). Dr. Contag’s research uses imaging to assess tissue response to stress, reveal immune cell migration patterns, understand stem cell biology, and advance biological therapies.

Dr. Contag received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Minnesota. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, where he later joined as a faculty member in Pediatrics. Prior to joining MSU as IQ Director, Dr. Contag served in various leadership roles at Stanford, including Associate Chief of the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine, Director of the Center for Innovation in In Vivo Imaging (SCI3), and Co-Director of both the Molecular Imaging Program and Child Health Research Institute.

RESEARCH

The Contag Lab develops and uses noninvasive imaging tools that can reveal the nuances of biological processes and provide an overall picture of disease states, thereby contributing to the development of novel interventions. The lab is currently applying these tools to examine the close relationships between cancer and the immune system. Further, the Contag Lab uses micro-optics to develop miniaturized confocal microscopes and Raman endoscopes to interrogate disease states inside the human body. This research enables point-of-care microscopy that is changing the diagnostic paradigm from biopsy and histopathology to in vivo pathology.