If successful, the project could revolutionise techniques used for cancer cell detection and cancer diagnosis.
Prof Eccles, of the Otago pathology department, yesterday received one of three inaugural HRC Explorer Grants, to investigate the idea of using a form of laser light - circular polarised light - to evaluate the aggressiveness of cancer in living cells.
He is working closely with Associate Prof Igor Meglinski, of the Otago physics department, in this ''new and very hot area of physics''.
Prof Eccles was ''particularly pleased'' to gain the funding.
''Our new optical methodology measures increased aggressiveness in cancer cells due to changes that occur in the optical properties of the cells.''
These changes partly resulted from the increasing size of the nucleus compared with the rest of the cell, as cancer cells ''become progressively less differentiated and more aggressive'', he said in an interview.
The new approach, initially involving cells grown by researchers outside the body, was ''particularly interesting'' and had ''real potential''.
If this approach worked, it could result in potentially quicker, cheaper and less cumbersome forms of testing the aggressiveness of cancer cells, as a guide to medical treatment.
Eventually, it might also be possible for a cancer surgeon to use circular polarised light shone through an endoscope probe within the body to check immediately whether any nearby cancerous cells remained after surgery.
This could possibly be done without having to take biopsies and test them in a laboratory. Prof Eccles is a member of the university's Centre for Translational Cancer Research, which combines major Otago research groups in cancer genetics and cancer immunology with leading oncologists and surgeons.
Auckland University researcher Associate Prof Geoffrey Krissansen and Prof Michael Berridge, of the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington, also received Explorer Grants.
