Researchers' holographic video technique has commercial competition

I was intrigued to learn about the technique developed by scientists at New York University to record 3D movies of microscopic systems, such as biological molecules, using holographic video. They describe the method, detailed in a recent Optics Express paper, as a label-free approach to flow cytometry—and say it could improve medical diagnostics and drug discovery. Then I learned of a commercial instrument claiming the same capabilities.

I was intrigued to learn about the technique developed by scientists at New York University to record 3D movies of microscopic systems, such as biological molecules, using holographic video. Researchers in Professor David Grier's lab describe the method, which they detailed in a recent Optics Express paper, as a label-free approach to flow cytometry. They say it could improve medical diagnostics and drug discovery.

Then I learned that a commercial instrument claiming the same capabilities has been in existence for more than five years. The Digital Holographic Microscope, manufactured by Lyncee Tec (Lausanne, Switzerland) and distributed in the US by NanoAndMore USA, Inc., comes in reflection mode and transmission mode models. The former has some unique features including a 25MHz stroboscopic mode that allows stop-action in the nanosecond range. It can map movement and show the influence of changing variables in real-time. "There is nothing else commercially available that can do this," NanoAndMore CEO George C. McMurtry told me. In addition, he said, the commercial instrument "does exactly what Professor David Grier’s group had to make from scratch." McMurtry added, "We are trying to get the pharmaceutical companies and university researchers to realize that this instrument exists and can greatly speed up their research efforts."