Friday, December 12, 2008

Neuroscience loves biooptics!

Normally, perusing the conference program is a good way to tell whether a trade show is a good match for your interests. If your interests are in biooptics and biophotonics, though, looking at the Neuroscience 2008 (Washington, DC, November 15-19) program would not have been a reliable indicator of relevance. There was nary a mention of technologies in the session descriptions—but the show floor was positively bursting with photonics and optics companies, both component suppliers and instrumentation vendors. That’s certainly not true of all biomedical industry events, so I was pleasantly surprised.

Normally, perusing the conference program is a good way to tell whether a trade show is a good match for your interests. If your interests are in biooptics, though, looking at the Neuroscience 2008 (Washington, DC, November 15-19) program would not have been a reliable indicator of relevance. There was nary a mention of technologies in the session descriptions—but the show floor was positively bursting with photonics and optics companies, both component suppliers and instrumentation vendors. That’s certainly not true of all biomedical industry events, so I was pleasantly surprised.

My picks for show highlights:

Lockheed Martin Aculight, which promoted its Capella infrared nerve stimulator.

Olympus showcased its FSX100 Bio Imaging Navigator all-in-one microscope system among other products that address both ends of the microscopy spectrum and cater to either the high-end user or novice microscopists.

Carl Zeiss MicroImaging made a splash by announcing four new fluorescence imaging systems, saying these additions make its family of optical sectioning microscopes the largest on the market. Zeiss also used Neuroscience 2008 to launch an educational website in collaboration with Florida State University, which intends to be a "comprehensive and independent resource to learn about the latest techniques in fluorescence imaging."

Both Zeiss and Visage Imaging showcased software working on autostereoscopic (meaning no need for red-and-blue glasses or other eyewear/headgear!) interactive 3D displays by Tridelity, which uses a parallax barrier to produce a two-view, head-tracked display for single-viewer systems or a multiview display that supports multiple viewers.

And Nikon and Thorlabs announced their collaboration to bring optical coherence tomography (OCT) to Nikon's FN1 "PhysioStation" microscope system for neurophysiology and in vivo, small-animal studies.

More information:
Tridelity