Optics/​Photonics

A marriage between the endoscope and a new field of medical imaging — Cerenkov Luminescence Imaging (CLI) — may allow surgeons to more completely remove cancerous tumors. The technique, called Cerenkov Luminescence Endoscopy (CLE), offers advantages over both traditional endoscopic and imaging...

Although often curable if detected early, melanoma causes the deaths of nearly 9,000 Americans each year. The incidence of melanoma is increasing at a rate faster than that of any of the seven most common cancers. A new medical diagnostic device invented by John A. Viator, Ph.D, an...

Each year, upwards of 1.5 million cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI) occur in the United States. Conventional imaging methods don't always provide physicians with as much detail as they would like when it comes to determining how the injury damaged the patient's brain tissue, predicting how the...

A team of physicists from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), the Neils Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Harvard University has developed a theory describing how to both detect weak electrical signals and cool electrical circuits using light and something similar to a nanosized loudspeaker. The ability...

An advanced blood test uses a blood sample, digital microscope, and an image-processing algorithm to distinguish suspect circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from healthy cells — a method that could yield information comparable to some types of surgical biopsies, according to findings from five new...

Aculight is a complete laser solutions resource. Founded in 1993 and privately held, they develop and manufacture innovative lasers for the industrial, research, government and medical markets. Offering both off-the-shelf and custom-designed products, Aculight is an ideal partner for laser system development. www.aculight.com

In 1999, Boston Micromachines Corporation, a newly formed company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, received a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for space-based adaptive optical technology. The Phase I led to a Phase II SBIR with JPL and...

A Microsoft Research Connections project proposes to develop a contact lens that monitors blood glucose levels for type 1 diabetes patients. Other non-invasive alternatives to the finger-pricking method have also been explored elsewhere — such as this tear-based glucose sensor from Arizona State University,...