Thursday, February 18, 2016

Through the Looking Glass

What can we learn about the latest photonic and optical tools for biological applications?
From the 2016 SPIE Photonics West BIOS expo, we asked a few of the many exhibitors to shed light on some of these tools and the science behind them.  
I would like to thank the following participants in this 2/13/16 video.  My apologies for the low quality, I shot it with a point and shoot still camera.  More information can be found by following the links to their websites.

1. Mary Harper Ph.D. talks about advanced microscopy products.  

2.  Xiaoshi Zhang, Ph.D  shows us the eXtreme Ultraviolet Ultrafast Source (XUUS4) from KMLABS.  More about the science and technology making nanoscale imaging down to the atomic level may be found here:


3. Ben Barbieri, Ph.D. , President of ISS gives us a clear and concise explanation of FRET (Förster resonance energy transfer) 
There is a class in April 2016 to learn more about this and related subjects:
and be sure to check out the ISS website

4. Dipl. -Phys. Uwe Ortmann from the Berlin based PicoQuant talks to us about confocal microscopy which enables us to image single molecules and proteins. The website includes links to workshops and courses: http://www.picoquant.com/

 5. Bob Kressin, President of KS Technologies shows how his company designed a spectroscopy (determine the chemical composition of a substance and match it to a database of materials) device using DLP (think video projector) technology.  https://kstechnologies.com/

6. Scott Rudder, Vice President of Marketing and Sales at IPS Innovative Photonic Solutions talks to us about Ramen spectroscopy which enables us to examine molecular structure (you could for example identify the active pharmaceutical ingredients and polymorphic forms of a drug) I'm sorry Scott but my camera ran out of card so you were not able to finish telling us about the Integrated Ramen Probe but there is more about it here:

The video is about 13 minutes, we hope you enjoy seeing the latest advances in biophotonic and optics technology.


For other videos on photonics see:






Thursday, February 4, 2016

photonics - science of light

If you happen to be in San Francisco 2/13, 2/14, and have an interest in the science and technology of light and optics I highly recommend going to Moscone and checking out the Photonics West Bios Expo. 
More info:


I'll try to remember to wear my brown fedora hat, so if you see me please introduce yourself!