Report from Biomedical Optics Symposium (BiOS)/Photonics West--Part 2

Even though it most definitely exists, “the cost benefit of most clinical biophotonics technology is not well documented,” said Brian C. Wilson (Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto) in his informative presentation during Monday's Lasers and Photonics Marketplace Seminar.

Even though it most definitely exists, “the cost benefit of most clinical biophotonics technology is not well documented,” said Brian C. Wilson (Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto) in his informative presentation during Monday's Lasers and Photonics Marketplace Seminar.

On Tuesday, two plenary sessions took place: Frances S. Ligler, the Navy’s Senior Scientist for Biosensors and Biomaterials and current Chair of the Bioengineering Section of the National Academy of Engineering, presented a Perspective on the Future of Optical Biosensors. And Harold G. Craighead, Director of the Nanobiotechnology Center at Cornell University, explored the use of nanostructures for biological research.

Report from Biomedical Optics Symposium (BiOS)/Photonics West--Part 1

Tonight's Hot Topics session packed a lot of information—and innovation—into just over 2 hours. It included a tribute not originally planned, but certainly appropriate, in honor of Britton Chance, who passed away in November 2010. Bruce Tromberg (University of California Irvine) and Arjun Yodh (University of Pennsylvania) concluded their homage to the prolific researcher by proposing a new unit of measurement: the Britton Chance Unit (BCU), equal to 100 milliwatts/square cm, which is the maximum exposure intensity for biological tissue damage.

Tonight's Hot Topics session packed a lot of information—and innovation—into just over 2 hours. It included a tribute not originally planned, but certainly appropriate, in honor of Britton Chance, who passed away in November 2010. Bruce Tromberg (University of California Irvine) and Arjun Yodh (University of Pennsylvania) concluded their homage to the prolific researcher by proposing a new unit of measurement: the Britton Chance Unit (BCU), equal to 100 milliwatts/square cm, which is the maximum exposure intensity for biological tissue damage.

Tomorrow (Sunday) will see the unveiling of an International Microcirculation Imaging Lab by a panel of researchers from key facilities in Europe and North America. “The vital role of the microcirculation in every organ of the body provides extraordinary opportunities for health impact, especially personalized healthcare,” says Martin Leahy, a conference chair. He explains that the ability of optical technologies to now provide “exquisite 3D images of the smallest blood vessels at clinically important depths,” enable detection of changes before any clinical signs, and prediction the onset of blindness and ulceration.

Also on the agenda for Sunday is an invited presentation by the Northwestern University team that recently proved able to detect early signs of lung cancer in humans by examining cells scraped from the patients’ cheeks.

Gearing up for Biomedical Optics Symposium (BiOS)/Photonics West--Part 2

The tribute to MIT's Michael S. Feld, which will kick off the BiOS Hot Topics session on Saturday night, will be followed by seven other presentations, including one by David Huang, a pioneer of optical coherence tomography, who will discuss new OCT developments impacting that technology’s original application: Ophthalmology.

The tribute to Michael S. Feld, which will kick off the BiOS Hot Topics session on Saturday night, will be followed by seven other presentations, including one by David Huang, a pioneer of optical coherence tomography, who will discuss new OCT developments impacting that technology’s original application: Ophthalmology.

In addition, we'll get to hear about fluorescence lifetime techniques for intravascular diagnostics (presented by Laura Marcu of the University of California/Davis), using light to control the brain (by MIT’s Ed Boyden), and novel uses of femtosecond laser pulses (by Harvard’s Eric Mazur), and clinical multiphoton tomography (by Karsten Koenig, of Saarland University and JenLab GmbH—who won a 2010 Berthold Leibinger award 2010 Berthold Leibinger award for this work). Paras Prasad, of the University of Buffalo, will discuss a multiplex platform for analyzing macromolecular dynamics in live cells (while on Sunday, Prasad will deliver a keynote exploring the impact of multiphoton microscopy and multimodal imaging on 21st century healthcare).

Also part of Hot Topics will be a presentation by Alexander Oraevsky of Fairway Medical Technologies on 3-D optoacoustic tomography. While photoacoustics technology is only just beginning to enter the commercial market, it is an area of great interest and dynamism: The BiOS “Photons Plus Ultrasound” conference attracted nearly 30% more papers and almost 40% greater audience in 2010, over already-impressive increases in 2009. This year, Oraevsky chairs a Tuesday session on novel methods and technologies that will include a University of Michigan team discussing a photonic crystal-metallic structure able to produce an ultrasound signal at nearly the same frequency spectrum as the input laser pulse.

Gearing up for Biomedical Optics Symposium (BiOS)/Photonics West--Part 1

This weekend I'll be attending the Biomedical Optics Symposium (BiOS), which now represents 45% of the educational content at Photonics West. Saturday night will find me at the appropriately named Hot Topics plenary, which promises to deliver "the latest technical breakthroughs and directions from leading worldwide experts.” Each year, this plenary showcases some of the most interesting work underway—mostly in research, but also in the commercial realm.

This weekend I'll be attending the Biomedical Optics Symposium (BiOS), which now represents 45% of the educational content at Photonics West. Saturday night will find me at the appropriately named Hot Topics plenary, which promises to deliver "the latest technical breakthroughs and directions from leading worldwide experts.” Each year, this plenary showcases some of the most interesting work underway—mostly in research, but also in the commercial realm.

This year’s Hot Topics will begin with a tribute to Michael Feld, the MIT professor who pioneered the application of spectroscopy to biomedicine. Not long after BiOS 2010, Feld lost his battle with cancer, but his presence is still with us, as will be demonstrated in a discussion of recent work that promises to overcome obstacles to the long-anticipated promise of noninvasive glucose monitoring and tomographic cell imaging.