BioOptics Worldview Blog featuring biomedical and biophotonics topics, news and research.

Optical imaging tech transfer programs encourage collaboration

May 15, 2012 9:46 PM by Barbara Goode

Transitioning technology from lab to market can be tricky. During a rump session organized by the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA) at the Optical Society's (OSA) 2012 Biomedical Optics and 3D Imaging Congress, Robert Nordstrom of the National Institutes of Health said that better teamwork between academics and industry personnel can make a critical difference. He pointed to two funding programs offered by the National Cancer Institute (NCI)--the PAR-10-169 Academic-Industrial Partnerships for Translation of in vivo Imaging Systems for Cancer Investigations and the Network for Translational Research: Optical Imaging in Multimodal Platforms--that both require funding recipients to demonstrate academic/industrial collaboration.

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Determining whether a patient will respond to chemo

May 1, 2012 2:51 PM by Barbara Goode

IÃ¢ÂÂm finding the plenary talks here at OSAÃ¢ÂÂs Biomedical Optics and 3D Imaging conference particularly inspiring. For instance, this morning, Bruce TrombergÃ¢ÂÂs (University of California Irvine) talk on diffuse optical spectroscopy (DOS) as applied to breast cancer provided hope that cancer patients can be assessed before administration of chemotherapy to determine whether their tumors are likely to respond positively to the treatment (it turns out, you can predict this). Anybody who has watched a loved one suffer though this devastating treatment for naught will certainly appreciate this point.

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The world's fastest-focusing lens?

April 20, 2012 7:38 AM by Barbara Goode

"The fastest focusing lens in the world" can change focal length in sub-microseconds--and can also do beam modulation, which makes it versatile for applications including spectroscopy and imaging. TAG Optics is a startup launched just a few months ago to commercialize this lens; founder and CEO Christian Theriault helped me understand the technology's application to a two-photon microscopy application: In non-synchronous mode, the lens generates a z-stack nearly instantaneously. "Instead of changing the focus stage, we would turn the lens on and get the z-stack right away, so it takes away the need to do post-image recreation." Theriault says the company is in the process of building a new driving kit "that will give us much more power, that would technically allow us at 10x do a 1 cm focus range. So you'd have a fixed stage, your sample, and electronically focus completely."

The technology, which works by sending sound waves into a liquid, was developed in 2006 by a Princeton professor associated with MIRTHE (Mid Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment), the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. MIRTHE dedicated its most recent Investment Focus Group Workshop to medical applications.

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At Pittcon 2012: Are exosomes biomarkers? Laser-based bionanoparticle tracking helps to answer

March 14, 2012 12:51 PM by Barbara Goode

In a meeting with NanoSight (Salisbury, UK) CEO Jeremy Warren, I learned that research in exosomes has increased dramatically over the past five years. Not yet well understood, exosomes are 30-100 nm particles that cells Ã¢ÂÂpurposefully and systematically shed into the bloodstream.Ã¢ÂÂ

At Pittcon 2012--happening this week in Orlando, FL--NanoSight is touting its reportedly unique (photonics based) ability to facilitate research in this area, which has taken off thanks to recent recognition of exosomes as potential biomarkers. The particles appear to be involved in cell signaling, Warren says: They carry signaling proteins as well as messenger and microRNAs. Circulating levels of exosomes are found to be elevated in various disorders, including cancer, atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease, hematological and inflammatory diseases, and diabetes.

Exosome research has reportedly been constrained by a lack of suitable characterization methods, but NanoSight says that its nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) technology is unique in allowing direct, individual visualization and counting of specific exosomes in liquid suspension in real time: Laser light illuminates the particles, and a video camera captures the scattering.

Stay tuned for more news from Pittcon 2012...

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BiOS 2012: Nothing uncertain about business in biophotonics

January 22, 2012 9:35 PM by Barbara Goode

The Biomedical Optics Symposium (BiOS) of Photonics West 2012 opened yesterday. The number of papers has held steady from last year at about 1800--which James Fujimoto (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Rox Anderson (Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard School of Medicine) consider great in this "uncertain economy," they said while introducing last night's Hot Topics session. Vendors in the exhibit hall reported nothing uncertain about their life sciences business, though, and event organizers note that the exhibits grew 15% over last year's event.

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