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.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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."
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."
Monday, July 20, 2009
OCT for cancer detection/diagnosis
During his appearance last month as the fifth annual Hounsfield memorial lecturer at the Imperial College London (England) Imaging Sciences Centre, MIT professor James Fujimoto said that screening and early stage diagnosis of cancers is a growth area for optical coherence tomography (OCT). Within days of Fujimoto's presentation, a number of announcements from commercial OCT developers addresses the use of the technology for cancer detection.
During his appearance as the fifth annual Hounsfield memorial lecturer at the Imperial College London (England) Imaging Sciences Centre, MIT professor James Fujimoto said that screening and early stage diagnosis of cancers is a growth area for optical coherence tomography (OCT).
Within days of Fujimoto's presentation, Within days of Fujimoto's presentation, OCT developer Volcano (San Diego, CA) told Massachusetts business journal Mass High Tech that it hopes to branch into cancer diagnosis--and another announcement reported a novel cancer detection system based on optical demultiplexed (OD) optical coherence tomography (OCT).
Similarly, skin cancer detection is a potential application of Michelson Diagnostics' VivoSight system, just released for clinical use in Europe.
During his appearance as the fifth annual Hounsfield memorial lecturer at the Imperial College London (England) Imaging Sciences Centre, MIT professor James Fujimoto said that screening and early stage diagnosis of cancers is a growth area for optical coherence tomography (OCT).
Within days of Fujimoto's presentation, Within days of Fujimoto's presentation, OCT developer Volcano (San Diego, CA) told Massachusetts business journal Mass High Tech that it hopes to branch into cancer diagnosis--and another announcement reported a novel cancer detection system based on optical demultiplexed (OD) optical coherence tomography (OCT).
Similarly, skin cancer detection is a potential application of Michelson Diagnostics' VivoSight system, just released for clinical use in Europe.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Urodynamix's financial report indicates demand for NIRS technology
This week, Urodynamix Technologies Ltd. reported exciting news: Financial results for its fiscal first quarter (ended March 31) showed a 1,269%increase from revenues in Q1 2008. The spike resulted from the first commercial sales of the company's URO NIRS 2000 in the quarter--and as of March 31, the company had an order backlog of $92,576.
This week, Urodynamix Technologies Ltd. reported exciting news: Financial results for its fiscal first quarter (ended March 31) showed a 1,269% increase from revenues in Q1 2008. The spike resulted from the first commercial sales of the company's URO NIRS 2000 in the quarter--and as of March 31, the company had an order backlog of $92,576.
Urodynamix has been busy working partnerships to get its near infrared spectroscopy products out into the world. For instance a new agreement with pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer has the partners collaborating on promotional programs to increase awareness of UroNIRS Bladder Monitor technology among urologists and medical professionals. And a product development and distribution agreement with Timm Medical Technologies aims to apply NIRS to erectile dysfunction.
This week, Urodynamix Technologies Ltd. reported exciting news: Financial results for its fiscal first quarter (ended March 31) showed a 1,269% increase from revenues in Q1 2008. The spike resulted from the first commercial sales of the company's URO NIRS 2000 in the quarter--and as of March 31, the company had an order backlog of $92,576.
Urodynamix has been busy working partnerships to get its near infrared spectroscopy products out into the world. For instance a new agreement with pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer has the partners collaborating on promotional programs to increase awareness of UroNIRS Bladder Monitor technology among urologists and medical professionals. And a product development and distribution agreement with Timm Medical Technologies aims to apply NIRS to erectile dysfunction.
Photonics' impact on ophthalmology
Optics and photonics technologies have advanced ophthalmology at least as much as any other medical specialty. Both the excimer laser and optical coherence tomography (OCT) figured prominently at the recent American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting. Since then, a research report urged greater access to laser and photodynamic treatments, saying such availability would reduce the incidence of future blindness.
Optics and photonics technologies have advanced ophthalmology at least as much as any other medical specialty. Both the excimer laser and optical coherence tomography (OCT) figured prominently at the recent American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting. Since then, a research report, urged greater access to laser and photodynamic treatments saying such availability would reduce the incidence of future blindness.
Last week's announcement of the 2009 PhAST/Laser Focus World Innovation Award winner, BioPhotonic Solutions' femtoFIT, has implications for corrective eye surgery, according to the award judges. And a new low-cost camera promises to expand the technologies' impact to eye care for millions of underserved people around the world.
In another inspiring look toward the future, the open publication of a massive data base of hi-res OCT images hopes to facilitate development of macular degeneration-diagnosis software.
Optics and photonics technologies have advanced ophthalmology at least as much as any other medical specialty. Both the excimer laser and optical coherence tomography (OCT) figured prominently at the recent American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting. Since then, a research report, urged greater access to laser and photodynamic treatments saying such availability would reduce the incidence of future blindness.
Last week's announcement of the 2009 PhAST/Laser Focus World Innovation Award winner, BioPhotonic Solutions' femtoFIT, has implications for corrective eye surgery, according to the award judges. And a new low-cost camera promises to expand the technologies' impact to eye care for millions of underserved people around the world.
In another inspiring look toward the future, the open publication of a massive data base of hi-res OCT images hopes to facilitate development of macular degeneration-diagnosis software.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Cardiac imaging and OCT's legal mess
"Word is getting out” about imaging tools that enable more precise guidance during heart surgery, said Volcano Corp. VP Joe Burnett, referring to the increased number of imaging-related presentations at the recent American College of Cardiology (ACC) Annual Meeting 2009.) Speaking at the conference, former ACC President Pamela Douglas, M.D. said that imaging is growing faster than all other procedures, services and diagnostic tests.
Many of the talks focused on intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT), either pitting the approaches against each other or demonstrating their complementary use. Volcano has a foot in each camp, bolstered during the past year by acquisitions of IVUS developer Novelis and OCT developer Axsun. The latter launched a legal battle because last summer, Axsun entered into a multi-year exclusive agreement with another supplier of cardiac OCT systems, LightLab Imaging (Westford, MA). Under the agreement, Axsun would supply advanced tunable lasers for LightLab’s swept-source OCT systems.
We’re still waiting for the final answer to the question, “What happens when the company you acquire has supply agreements with your competitors?” but for now, a Superior Court injunction, in response to a complaint by LightLab, is prohibiting Volcano from using Axsun tunable lasers in its OCT products.
Many of the talks focused on intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT), either pitting the approaches against each other or demonstrating their complementary use. Volcano has a foot in each camp, bolstered during the past year by acquisitions of IVUS developer Novelis and OCT developer Axsun. The latter launched a legal battle because last summer, Axsun entered into a multi-year exclusive agreement with another supplier of cardiac OCT systems, LightLab Imaging (Westford, MA). Under the agreement, Axsun would supply advanced tunable lasers for LightLab’s swept-source OCT systems.
We’re still waiting for the final answer to the question, “What happens when the company you acquire has supply agreements with your competitors?” but for now, a Superior Court injunction, in response to a complaint by LightLab, is prohibiting Volcano from using Axsun tunable lasers in its OCT products.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)