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  • Volume 6, Issue 6

    • Volume 6, Issue 6

    (Image courtesy of NIGHTSEA)
    NIGHTSEA founder Charles Mazel photographed a Phymanthus crucifer, known as a beaded anemone, in Pedro Bank in Jamaica. While most of these fluoresce a single color, this one exhibited intense oranges and yellows with subtle patches of green, he says.
    Biophotonics Tools

    Blue light gives night diving a bright makeover

    Lee Dubay
    Nov. 19, 2013
    Seeking to get a more vibrant, varied fluorescence experience when viewing marine life during nighttime diving, Charles Mazel, Ph.D., principal research scientist at Physical ...
    Data courtesy of Mark Sanders, Director, Twin Cities University Imaging Centers, University of Minnesota
    To investigate the bleaching rate of fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) with different light sources, 1mM FITC in water under a coverslip was collected with a Nikon E800 and 40x, 0.75 numerical aperture objective at 1 s intervals for 1 min using a CoolSNAP MYO camera (Photometrics). The red dotted line represents a 120 W metal-halide source at full power with the microscope shutter set to block illumination between exposures using an enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) filter set. The green solid line is similar, using the cyan line of the self-shuttering Lumencor SpectraX Light Engine at full power, pulsing at 1 ms intervals during the 1 s exposure. Note t0 = 2,000 counts and 5,081 counts for metal-halide and light engine, respectively.
    Fluorescence

    FLUORESCENCE MICROSCOPY/LIGHT SOURCES: Light engines: Lighting the way to mercury-free microscopy

    Claudia Jaffe
    Nov. 19, 2013
    Fluorescence microscopes and other scientific instruments still rely on mercury-based light sources -- despite associated costs and hazards and many mandates to eliminate the ...
    (Image courtesy of Jenlab GmbH, Saarbrücken, Germany)
    In these Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, an image (a) taken at 300 MHz with the relatively small and inexpensive Femtolasers Integral Core is comparable to an image (b) taken with a more expensive, traditional 80 MHz laser. In some regions, the Core shows even higher contrast.
    Fluorescence

    FEMTOSECOND LASERS/LASER SURGERY/TWO-PHOTON MICROSCOPY: Ultrafast pulses for precision procedures

    Mike May
    Nov. 19, 2013
    The miniscule pulses of ultrafast lasers reveal new expanses in biology, and offer powerful tools for medicine.
    FIGURE 1. The backscatter power equation and tissue reflection from two different tissues have indices of n1 and n2, respectively.
    Fluorescence

    OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY/TISSUE PHANTOMS: A physical eye model for OCT

    Nov. 19, 2013
    Tissue phantoms are useful as instrument-design aids, as tools for helping buyers compare different systems, and as training resources for helping personnel -- from clinicians...
    FIGURE 1. VueTek Scientific wanted to develop a portable vascular imaging product that would allow a medical practitioner to visualize and observe subcutaneous vasculature in real time.
    Bioimaging

    BIOMEDICAL DEVICE DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT: Borrowed components for cost-effective imaging devices

    Nov. 19, 2013
    Readily available components widely used in other markets can facilitate the development of medical digital imaging systems. The resulting systems can be not only less costly,...

    More content from Volume 6, Issue 6

    FIGURE 1. The experimental setup for a digital hologram includes RGB lasers, a microdisplay, beam-steering optics, and a computer to show the images on the microdisplay as well as control the whole system.
    Fluorescence

    BIOMEDICAL IMAGING: 3D digital holograms visualize biomedical applications

    Nov. 19, 2013
    Digital holograms -- whether of DNA, cells, full-sized organs, or even the life-sized human body itself -- can be holographically printed for a range of 3D analysis applications...
    1311reiss Fig1
    Fluorescence

    BIOPHOTONICS RESEARCH FUNDING: Flexible funding options for biophotonics

    Susan Reiss
    Nov. 19, 2013
    One potential answer to reduced federal science funding: private foundation backing. The landscape is changing in terms of private financial support, but because biophotonics ...
    Fluorescence

    BIOPHOTONICS/BIOMEDICAL OPTICS: Stanford's increasing focus on bio evident in symposium

    Gail Overton
    Nov. 19, 2013
    Day 2 at the 2013 Stanford Photonics Research Center (SPRC) Symposium focused on biophotonics -- a rapidly growing discipline for Stanford University that is "stealing" lab space...
    Both McGill University (left) and Lumencor (right) have developed Mercury Free Microscopy logos.
    Fluorescence

    FLUORESCENCE MICROSCOPY: A program to help labs 'go green'

    Barbara Gefvert
    Nov. 19, 2013
    Mercury reduction has become a hot topic in biomedical imaging. Mercury is a toxic element, but because of its heretofore-unique capability to emit several color bands that appear...
    1311bownews Fig3
    Fluorescence

    BIOMEDICAL OPTICS: FiO explores bio frontiers

    Nov. 19, 2013
    As in past years, life sciences was a major focus of Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2013 (October 6-10, Orlando, FL), the 97th annual meeting of The Optical Society (OSA).
    (Image courtesy of Nature Medicine)
    The new imaging tool, which combines multiphoton laser-scanning microscopy (MPLSM) and optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI), reveals strikingly different networks of blood vessels surrounding different types of tumors in a mouse model. Left: Breast cancer in the breast. Middle: Metastatic breast cancer in the brain. Right: Ectopic breast cancer in the skin.
    Fluorescence

    MULTIPHOTON MICROSCOPY/OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY: Powerhouse optical techniques combine to reveal cancer mechanisms

    Barbara Gefvert
    Nov. 18, 2013
    For the first time, researchers are able to track the movement of molecules, cells, and fluids within tumors; examine abnormalities in the blood vessel network inside them; and...
    Neuroscience

    NEUROSCIENCE/LIGHT THERAPY: Light activates the brain, even in people who are totally blind

    Nov. 18, 2013
    Light enhances brain activity during a cognitive task, even in some people who are totally blind, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Montreal (...
    Biomedicine

    DERMATOLOGY: Scarring reduced in laser treatment of rhinophyma

    Nov. 18, 2013
    Fractional ablative carbon dioxide (CO2) laser therapy has proven able to produce good cosmetic outcomes in people with mild to moderate rhinophyma, a condition characterized ...
    Microscopy

    QUANTITATIVE MICROSCOPY/LABEL-FREE IMAGING: NIR quantitative phase imaging visualizes cellular dynamics through silicon

    Nov. 18, 2013
    A team of scientists from the University of Texas at Arlington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge, MA) has overcome past limitations on quantitative...
    1311bowbreakf2
    Bioimaging

    HEMODYNAMICS/BIOMEDICAL IMAGING: Inexpensive off-the-shelf components enable hospital-grade blood-flow imaging

    Nov. 18, 2013
    With less than $100 in off-the-shelf commercial parts, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) have duplicated the performance of expensive, scientific-grade...
    1311bowbreak Fig2
    Microscopy

    MICROSCOPY: New light-sheet microscope produces images in real time

    Nov. 18, 2013
    Compared to confocal microscopy, light sheet microscopy generates 3,000 times the amount of data. Now, a custom designed four-lens selective plane illumination microscope (SPIM...
    1311bowbreakf1
    Bioimaging

    PHOTOACOUSTICS/BREAST CANCER: Photoacoustic mammoscopy aims for safer, earlier breast cancer screening

    Nov. 18, 2013
    The photoacoustic mammoscope represents an entirely new way of imaging the breast, and hopes to detect cancer earlier than current methods.
    Spectroscopy

    RAMAN SCATTERING/DRUG DELIVERY/NANOTECHNOLOGY: Optical detector solves major concern by evaluating IV drugs in tubing

    Nov. 18, 2013
    Computerized systems can deliver intravenous (IV) medications in precise amounts, but cannot identify or determine concentrations of drugs in the tubing-a fact that sometimes ...
    Barbaragoode2
    Microscopy

    Encouraging entrepreneurship in biophotonics

    Barbara Gefvert
    Nov. 18, 2013
    There were many good lessons for entrepreneurs and their supporters at the 2013 Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council's (MassMEDIC's) MedTech Investors Conference (November...