Through the looking glass - 2017 update

Here’s some of what I saw this year at BiOS and represents only a small fraction of what was there.  I’ll put up a few more links soon.  It is fascinating to see all these amazing developments in biophotonics, biomedical optics, and imaging being made at such a rapid pace.  Thanks to all who graciously let me point my little camera at them.  Please visit their linked websites to learn more about what is outlined here.

In the order that they appear in the video we present:

Dipl. - Phys. Uwe Ortmann of  PicoQuant returned this year from Berlin with the latest Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIM) development to capture motion in cells at 10 frames per second (FPS). 

http://www.picoquant.com/

Aileen Chen of Vista Optronics Inc. came to San Francisco from China and demonstrated a tiny endoscope (1.5mm outside diameter) - not much larger than an acupuncture needle. 

www.VistaOptronics.com

Justin Harris Ph.D. of  NanoHybrids Advanced Imaging Solutions came from Austin, Texas and explained how gold and light are used for non-invasive cancer diagnosis and treatment.

www.NanoHybrids.net

Markus Geiser Dr. sc. ETH of  IRsweep came from Zurich Switzerland and demonstrated a new spectrometer with  bandwidth of up to 150 cm^-1 in the mid-IR range of 5 µm (2000 cm^-1) to 10 µm (1000cm^-1).

www.irsweep.com

Ben Alexander of Caliber Imaging and Diagnostics from Lakeway, Texas demonstrated a new technology for quickly scanning and stitching together confocal microscope images of biological samples up to 80 x 120 mm.

www.caliberid.com

MOF: metal-organic frameworks enable seeing molecular bonds in 3D

An interesting development at Prof. Omar M. Yaghi's lab at UCB:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2016/08/18/new-way-display-3-d-structure-molecules/

healing with light part 02

This is basic information on optogenetics with animation:

2008 lecture by one of the pioneers in the field, Professor Karl Deisseroth:

Professor Deisseroth goes a little deeper into it in 2015 with recent research:

and a paper:

Targeting Neural Circuits

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.  

http://www.etaluma.com/

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:

http://www.kmlabs.com/content/high-harmonic-generation

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:

https://www.fluorescence-foundation.org/courses.aspx?id=champaign2016

and be sure to check out the ISS website

http://www.iss.com/

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:

http://ipslasers.com/integrated-Raman-probe.html 

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:

http://spie.org/app/spietv/default.aspx