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Richard Torres, MD, MS, BS

Associate Professor Adjunct
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About

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Associate Professor Adjunct

Biography

Dr. Torres is a board certified anatomic and clinical pathologist with subspecialty certification in hematopathology. His clinical practice includes general hematology and molecular diagnostics interpretative work principally focused on flow cytometry, laboratory-based hematologic testing, and next generation sequencing for hematologic malignancies. His clinical academic interests encompass medical laboratory instrumentation from an engineering perspective as well as pathology informatics, flow cytometry analysis, and specialized techniques for tissue processing and advanced microscopy (non-linear microscopy) for histology, including image analysis in digital pathology. He is Medical Director of Immunology Laboratory and Medical Director of Flow Cytometry and runs a research laboratory that builds and tests tissue processing and non-linear microscopy instruments as well as managing basic science, translational, and clinical studies employing the technique known as Clearing Histology with MultiPhoton Microscopy (CHiMP).


Appointments

Other Departments & Organizations

Education & Training

MS
Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science (2007)
Fellow
Yale University School of Medicine (2005)
Resident
Yale-New Haven Hospital (2004)
MD
Yale University (1999)
BS
Stanford University (1994)

Research

Overview

The work that we have done over the last decade for the development of a practical technique and instrument for non-destructive three-dimensional histology is of immense potential impact to both human diagnostics and animal studies of pathophysiology of disease. The success has been made possible by focused innovations in a variety of areas. Together with long-time collaborator Michael Levene and in concert with several other groups, we pioneered use of benzyl alcohol/benzyl benzoate (BABB) clearing for multiphoton microscopy. We developed strategies incorporating chemical modificaitons to speed up clearing using BABB, reducing processing time of small samples from days to a few hours. Early on we recognized the utility of a combined nuclear/protein fluorescent dye approach for visual reproduction of common pathology stains and identified the DAPI/eosin combination subsequently adopted by others. We designed and built the fastest high-resolution multiphoton microscope in the world, achieving light-microscopy level quality quickly and at depth, enabling heretofore largely impossible large-scale high-resolution reconstructions of animal tissue for investigative projects as well as practical clinical application for diagnostic pathology. And we have developed specialized efficient software for visualization of these large-scale three dimensional image stacks.

These techniques offer numerous potential advantages over traditional methods in terms of completeness of analysis, preservation of tissue for advanced molecular studies, speed and cost savings, and examination of important parameters such as architecture and abnormal growth, all while maintaining the compatibility with traditional histologic analysis.

We are continuing to both demonstrate the clinical and investigational prowess of the new technologies as well as further develop performance capabilities. Clinical trials of the application of the methods and techniques are well-advanced in prostate cancer and renal disease, and we have begun examining the increased diagnostic capabilities of multiphoton microscopy of bone marrow aspirate specimens for diagnosis and pathophysiology research studies.

Additionally, like other disciplines, we have been exploiting large data initiatives in pathology with are poised to benefit immensely from high quality digital data. Both three-dimensional imaging with digitization of morphologic data and genomic sequencing result in generation of vast amounts of information which require computing management and analysis tools in order to yield utility. Work done with current and former trainees with specialized knowledge of powerful new computing tools for imaging and genomic data management are the source of on-going computing projects. These developments are demonstrating that newest image pattern recognition techniques based on convolutional neural networks and python programming modules can be employed to aid in the accurate characterization of pathology image data. We are extending our data management and analysis techniques to a variety of anatomic and clinical pathology projects.


Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

Bone Marrow Examination; Hematologic Tests; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Immunophenotyping; Microscopy; Microscopy, Fluorescence, Multiphoton; Nonlinear Optical Microscopy; Second Harmonic Generation Microscopy; Serologic Tests

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Richard Torres's published research.

Publications

2022

2021

2020

Clinical Care

Overview

Richard Torres, MD, is a pathologist who specializes in diagnosing blood, or hematological, diseases and conditions. Some examples include anemia, leukemia, and myelodysplastic syndromes, which are a group of rare cancers. Dr. Torres is medical director of the flow cytometry and immunology labs. Both labs use fluid samples from patients to gather information that could be useful for a diagnosis.

“As a provider, you always remember moments where you feel you were able to contribute to someone’s overall care,” Dr. Torres says. “There’s a great deal of satisfaction coming from being able to help other people.”

When he isn’t gathering information for patient diagnoses, Dr. Torres works on research in which he helps develop new imaging tools to help visualize a patient’s tissue sample better. “We want to see tissue from a 3-D perspective, and to be able to see disease processes in a way that isn’t currently possible with regular microscopy imaging,” Dr. Torres says.

At Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Torres is an assistant professor of laboratory medicine.

Clinical Specialties

Pathology; Hematopathology

Board Certifications

  • Hematology (Pathology)

    Certification Organization
    AB of Pathology
    Original Certification Date
    2005
  • Anatomic & Clinical Pathology

    Certification Organization
    AB of Pathology
    Original Certification Date
    2005

Get In Touch

Contacts

Academic Office Number
Mailing Address

Laboratory Medicine

PO Box 208035

New Haven, CT 06520-8035

United States

Locations

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