Medical optical imaging is the use of light as an investigational imaging technique for medical applications, pioneered by American Physical Chemist Britton Chance. Examples include optical microscopy, spectroscopy, endoscopy, scanning laser ophthalmoscopy, laser Doppler imaging, and optical coherence tomography. Because light is an electromagnetic wave, similar phenomena occur in X-rays, microwaves, and radio waves.
SPIE is an international not-for-profit professional society for optics and photonics technology, founded in 1955. It organizes technical conferences, trade exhibitions, and continuing education programs for researchers and developers in the light-based fields of physics, including: optics, photonics, and imaging engineering. The society publishes peer-reviewed scientific journals, conference proceedings, monographs, tutorial texts, field guides, and reference volumes in print and online. SPIE is especially well-known for Photonics West, one of the laser and photonics industry's largest combined conferences and tradeshows which is held annually in San Francisco. SPIE also participates as partners in leading educational initiatives, and in 2020, for example, provided more than $5.8 million in support of optics education and outreach programs around the world.
Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an optical brain monitoring technique which uses near-infrared spectroscopy for the purpose of functional neuroimaging. Using fNIRS, brain activity is measured by using near-infrared light to estimate cortical hemodynamic activity which occur in response to neural activity. Alongside EEG, fNIRS is one of the most common non-invasive neuroimaging techniques which can be used in portable contexts. The signal is often compared with the BOLD signal measured by fMRI and is capable of measuring changes both in oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin concentration, but can only measure from regions near the cortical surface. fNIRS may also be referred to as Optical Topography (OT) and is sometimes referred to simply as NIRS.
Articles related specifically to biomedical engineering include:
Bruce J. Tromberg is an American photochemist and a leading researcher in the field of biophotonics. He is the director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Before joining NIH, he was Professor of Biomedical Engineering at The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and of Surgery at the School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine. He was the principal investigator of the Laser Microbeam and Medical Program (LAMMP), and the Director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic at Irvine. He was a co-leader of the Onco-imaging and Biotechnology Program of the NCI Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at Irvine.
Paul Suni is a Silicon Valley technologist, engineer, semiconductor device physicist and independent researcher. Since 1984, he has contributed to advancements in semiconductor electronics, photonics, digital imaging sensors and medical devices. In 2007, he dedicated himself to research concerning the scientific and philosophical foundations of technology and wellbeing.
Robert Alfano is an Italian-American experimental physicist. He is a Distinguished Professor of Science and Engineering at the City College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York, where he is also the founding director of the Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers (1982). He is a pioneer in the fields of Biomedical Imaging and Spectroscopy, Ultrafast lasers and optics, tunable lasers, semiconductor materials and devices, optical materials, biophysics, nonlinear optics and photonics; he has also worked extensively in nanotechnology and coherent backscattering. His discovery of the white-light supercontinuum laser is at the root of optical coherence tomography, which is breaking barriers in ophthalmology, cardiology, and oral cancer detection among other applications. He initiated the field known now as Optical Biopsy
Abraham Katzir is a Professor of Physics at Tel Aviv University, holding the Carol and Mel Taub Chair in Applied Medical Physics. He is the son of Professor Aharon Katzir, also a scientist, who was killed in 1972 in Ben-Gurion Airport by Japanese terrorists. His uncle, Professor Ephraim Katzir, was the President of Israel.
The Beckman Laser Institute is an interdisciplinary research center for the development of optical technologies and their use in biology and medicine. Located on the campus of the University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California, an independent nonprofit corporation was created in 1982, under the leadership of Michael W. Berns, and the actual facility opened on June 4, 1986. It is one of a number of institutions focused on translational research, connecting research and medical applications. Researchers at the institute have developed laser techniques for the manipulation of structures within a living cell, and applied them medically in treatment of skin conditions, stroke, and cancer, among others.
Samuel Achilefu is a Nigerian-born scientist and medical researcher who has pioneered both fundamental and applied research in science, engineering, and medicine. Dr. Samuel Achilefu is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he holds the Lyda Hill Distinguished University Chair in Biomedical Engineering. He is also Professor of Radiology and a member of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. Before joining UT Southwestern, he was the Michel M. Ter-Pogossian Professor of Radiology and Vice Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine. He held joint appointments as a professor of medicine, biochemistry and molecular biophysics, and biomedical engineering. He also served as the Director of the Washington University Molecular Imaging Center and the privately funded Theranostic Innovation Program and was co-director of the Center for Multiple Myeloma Nanotherapy and co-Leader of the Oncologic Imaging Program of the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University.
Hakeem Muata Oluseyi is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, inventor, educator, science communicator, author, actor, veteran, and humanitarian.
Maryellen L. Giger, is an American physicist and radiologist who has made significant contributions to the field of medical imaging.
Clare Elwell is a British academic who is a professor of medical physics and director of the Near Infrared Spectroscopy Group within the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory at University College London. She has served as president of both the International Society on Oxygen Transport to Tissue and the Society for Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy.
Michael Morris is an American biochemist, oceanographer and businessman, who has designed, developed and marketed new applications of optical sensing technology and spectroscopy. He has founded several companies including pHish Doctor, Ocean Optics Inc. (OOI), and SpectrEcology.
Anita Mahadevan-Jansen is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and holds the Orrin H. Ingram Chair in Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. Her research considers the development of optical techniques for clinical diagnosis and surgical guidance, particularly using Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy. She serves on the Board of Directors of SPIE, and is a Fellow of SPIE, The Optical Society, Society for Applied Spectroscopy, and the American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery. She was elected to serve as the 2020 Vice President of SPIE. With her election, Mahadevan-Jansen joined the SPIE presidential chain and served as President-Elect in 2021 and the Society's President in 2022.
Audrey K. Ellerbee Bowden is an American engineer and Dorothy J. Wingfield Phillips Chancellor's Faculty Fellow at Vanderbilt University, as well as an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. She is a Fellow of Optica, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE).
Stefan Andersson-Engels is a Swedish biophysicist specializing in the field of biophotonics. He is professor at University College Cork and the deputy director of the Irish Photonics Integration Center (IPIC) within the Science Foundation Ireland. Before joining University College Cork, he was Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Lund University. He has co-founded 3 biophotonics companies Spectracure, Lumito, BioPixS. He also co-founded biannual biophotonics summer school.
Irene Georgakoudi is a Greek biophysicist and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University, where her work focuses on developing non-invasive medical imaging techniques based on optical spectroscopy for applications in medical diagnostics and therapeutics.
Katarina Svanberg is a Swedish physician who is Professor and Chief Consultant of Oncology at the Skåne University Hospital. Her research considers the use of fluorescence-based tumour imaging and photodynamic therapy. She served as President of SPIE in 2011 and was awarded the SPIE Gold Medal in 2017.
Igor Meglinski is a British, New Zealand and Finnish scientist serving as a principal investigator at the College of Engineering & Physical Sciences at Aston University, where he is a Professor in Quantum Biophotonics and Biomedical Engineering. He is a Faculty member in the School of Engineering and Technology at the Department of Mechanical, Biomedical & Design Engineering, and is also associated with the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AIPT) and Aston Research Centre for Health in Ageing (ARCHA).
