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.
Showing posts with label Photonics West. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Photonics West. Show all posts
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Second dispatch from BiOS/PW ’09
This is a long week for those of us “all in” at BiOS and Photonics West, but though it’s not even halfway over, I can already tell it won’t be long enough for me to see all that I want to.
This is a long week for those of us “all in” at BiOS and Photonics West, but though it’s not even halfway over, I can already tell it won’t be long enough for me to see all that I want to.
I spent much of today in the Lasers and Photonics Marketplace seminar, wherein leaders of the greater optics and photonics industry reported and forecasted market outcomes, and discussed important developments. Laser Focus World chief editor Steve Anderson predicted that when all the 2008 numbers are in, the biomedical therapy market will reveal a decline of ~5% from 2007 levels, and 2009 figures will decline a bit further to $477 million in sales.
I also got to talk a bit with Claude Boccara of LLTech (Paris, France) following his presentation on an imaging approach his company calls “full field OCT.” It is unusual in that instead of imaging vertical “slices” of tissue (perpendicular to the probe) as do other optical coherence tomography scanners, LLTech’s “en face” approach images horizontally (parallel to the probe). While this inherently involves a limited depth of field, the approach is able to image a larger area and promises better penetration. The system combines the layers to produce the same kind of image cube that traditional OCT systems do—and lets you step through the cube by peeling away vertical slices. LLTech plans to launch its system commercially in 2010.
Oh, and I reported only one of the presentations at Saturday night’s Hot Topics session—so let me fill you in on another: Kishan Dholakia of the University of St. Andrews (U.K.) discussed photoporation (also called optical injection or transfection) of exogenous DNA into a cell, saying it is “set to become a mainstay in microscopy,” thanks especially to “novel light beams and optical technology and control.” Thanks, that is, to beam shaping.
This is a long week for those of us “all in” at BiOS and Photonics West, but though it’s not even halfway over, I can already tell it won’t be long enough for me to see all that I want to.
I spent much of today in the Lasers and Photonics Marketplace seminar, wherein leaders of the greater optics and photonics industry reported and forecasted market outcomes, and discussed important developments. Laser Focus World chief editor Steve Anderson predicted that when all the 2008 numbers are in, the biomedical therapy market will reveal a decline of ~5% from 2007 levels, and 2009 figures will decline a bit further to $477 million in sales.
I also got to talk a bit with Claude Boccara of LLTech (Paris, France) following his presentation on an imaging approach his company calls “full field OCT.” It is unusual in that instead of imaging vertical “slices” of tissue (perpendicular to the probe) as do other optical coherence tomography scanners, LLTech’s “en face” approach images horizontally (parallel to the probe). While this inherently involves a limited depth of field, the approach is able to image a larger area and promises better penetration. The system combines the layers to produce the same kind of image cube that traditional OCT systems do—and lets you step through the cube by peeling away vertical slices. LLTech plans to launch its system commercially in 2010.
Oh, and I reported only one of the presentations at Saturday night’s Hot Topics session—so let me fill you in on another: Kishan Dholakia of the University of St. Andrews (U.K.) discussed photoporation (also called optical injection or transfection) of exogenous DNA into a cell, saying it is “set to become a mainstay in microscopy,” thanks especially to “novel light beams and optical technology and control.” Thanks, that is, to beam shaping.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
My BiOS/PW jogging route includes…
The SPIE, producer of Photonics West (January 24-29) and BiOS (the largest of its four symposia), says that the 2009 BiOS event, starting on Saturday, will be ~15% larger than it was in 2008. I’ve packed my jogging shoes because the exhibits run only 9 hours and feature 150 companies. (The hall opens Saturday at 1 pm till 5 pm, and Sunday from 10 am till 4 pm). Here are a few stops I’m looking forward to:
The SPIE, producer of Photonics West (January 24-29) and BiOS (the largest of its four symposia), says that the 2009 BiOS event, starting on Saturday, will be ~15% larger than it was in 2008. I’ve packed my jogging shoes because the exhibits run only 9 hours and feature 150 companies. (The hall opens Saturday at 1 pm till 5 pm, and Sunday from 10 am till 4 pm). Here are a few stops I’m looking forward to:
Fianium (booth 8132) will demonstrate its recently announced supercontinuum fiber lasers, the first to use the company's new proprietary high performance photonic crystal fiber (PCF) design, developed in partnership with the University of Bath (Bath, England). The technology promises key advantages over traditional supercontinuum techniques.
Michelson Diagnostics’ (booth 8731) will demo its prototype hand-held OCT probe, based on multi-beam technology. The company plans to launch “more than one variant” of the new probe later in 2009, including a dermal version (with X-Y scanning, to enable 3D mapping of skin lesions) and a version equipped with a rigid endoscope, suitable for oral applications. The company will apply for a CE mark for the product this spring, and then file an FDA 510(k) application.
Of course the larger Photonics West event (exhibits open Tuesday, January 27) will feature plenty of companies targeting bio-optics applications, too. For instance Cal Sensors (booth 6234) will introduce LIRA-5S, a lead selenide thermal imaging array that combines sensitivity in a wider wavelength range with integrated electronics. The device can be programmed for use in a wide variety of high-speed thermal imaging applications.
And Inno-Spec GmbH (booth 1801) will introduce a mid-infrared (MIR) compact line-array spectrometer with sensitivity in the 1-3 micron wavelength region that is less expensive than competing technologies.
The SPIE, producer of Photonics West (January 24-29) and BiOS (the largest of its four symposia), says that the 2009 BiOS event, starting on Saturday, will be ~15% larger than it was in 2008. I’ve packed my jogging shoes because the exhibits run only 9 hours and feature 150 companies. (The hall opens Saturday at 1 pm till 5 pm, and Sunday from 10 am till 4 pm). Here are a few stops I’m looking forward to:
Fianium (booth 8132) will demonstrate its recently announced supercontinuum fiber lasers, the first to use the company's new proprietary high performance photonic crystal fiber (PCF) design, developed in partnership with the University of Bath (Bath, England). The technology promises key advantages over traditional supercontinuum techniques.
Michelson Diagnostics’ (booth 8731) will demo its prototype hand-held OCT probe, based on multi-beam technology. The company plans to launch “more than one variant” of the new probe later in 2009, including a dermal version (with X-Y scanning, to enable 3D mapping of skin lesions) and a version equipped with a rigid endoscope, suitable for oral applications. The company will apply for a CE mark for the product this spring, and then file an FDA 510(k) application.
Of course the larger Photonics West event (exhibits open Tuesday, January 27) will feature plenty of companies targeting bio-optics applications, too. For instance Cal Sensors (booth 6234) will introduce LIRA-5S, a lead selenide thermal imaging array that combines sensitivity in a wider wavelength range with integrated electronics. The device can be programmed for use in a wide variety of high-speed thermal imaging applications.
And Inno-Spec GmbH (booth 1801) will introduce a mid-infrared (MIR) compact line-array spectrometer with sensitivity in the 1-3 micron wavelength region that is less expensive than competing technologies.
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