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Loretta Scolaro has put real meaning into a doctor's words: "Now let's see what's going on here."

The PhD scholar in UWA's Optical + Biomedical Engineering Laboratory helped to design an imaging device that fits into a tiny needle, which is used for imaging breast cancer from inside a woman's body.

The ‘microscope in a needle' technology has been winning awards for a couple of years and Loretta has now won the 2014 Canon Extreme Imaging competition, for Australian students who are pushing the boundaries of scientific research through imaging technology.

She and her supervisor, Winthrop Professor David Sampson , who leads the project and who pioneered the use of light in non-invasive medical diagnostic and treatment techniques, were awarded their prizes at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum last month.

A reported 26 per cent of women who have breast cancer surgery need a second operation to remove more tissue. The ‘microscope in a needle' is designed to drastically improve that outcome with intra-operative tumour detection.

The imaging device shows where the edge of the tumour is, so the surgeon can remove it all the first time, saving trauma and cost of more surgical procedures.

Winthrop Professor Christobel Saunders , a breast cancer specialist from the School of Surgery, is spearheading the project with Professor Sampson.

The device that Loretta helped to design comprises a standard optical fibre, tiny lenses and mirrors combined in the shaft of a hypodermic needle.

Loretta won a $5,000 Canon voucher and $1,000, and Professor Sampson received a $2,000 voucher.

Dr Geoff Woolfe, senior general manager of Canon's Image and Video Research Centre, said the annual competition encouraged students to go above and beyond the realm of conventional imaging, to create and invent new ways of using imaging science to develop technologies of the future.

"We have a 24-year history of developing cutting edge technologies in Australia that benefit our customers world-wide," he said.