“Multidisciplinary” is a word heard often in photonics circles. It has become increasingly apt at SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing (DSS), where, in the words of Michael Eismann (Air Force Research Lab), last year’s symposium chair, you’ll see things that you won’t find anywhere else. Just a few examples -- from among 2,400 papers in the program -- illustrate the span across not only several disciplines but varied application areas as well.
Cancer and brain trauma
From the growing body of presentations at DSS on biomedicine and sensing technologies with health applications is a paper by Krzysztof Ptak (U.S. National Cancer Institute Center for Strategic Scientific Initiatives) on nanotechnology as a “new pipeline” for cancer diagnostics, imaging agents, and therapies (8031-63).
“The National Cancer Institute has taken the bold and visionary step of recognizing that it takes a multidisciplinary approach allowing for a convergence of molecular biology, oncology, physics, chemistry, and engineering leading to the development of clinically worthy technological solutions for the most important medical challenge of our time, namely the conquest of cancer,” said Conference Chair Tom George (Zyomed Corp.).
George pointed out that the future applications of micro- and nanotechnology research are “essentially limitless” and applicable in aerospace, transportation, sports, entertainment, and agriculture, as well as medicine.
Another paper (8029A-21), by Edward Dixon (University of Pittsburgh), looks at biomarkers for more sensitive, portable, and rapid diagnostics, prognostics, and therapeutic monitoring of traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI produced by repeated exposure to mild blasts is a signature injury of current wars, Dixon notes, and mild TBI produces subtle cognitive deficits that are difficult to detect and quantify.
Explosives and greenhouse gases
In the realm of lasers, Richard Miles, Arthur Dogariu, and James Michael (Princeton University) will present a paper (8024-16) on air lasing to detect trace particles in identifying buried explosives along a roadway, or airborne pollutants, and greenhouse gases. The work is the first demonstration of a practical air laser, Miles said. The process involves resonant two-photon dissociation of molecular oxygen and simultaneous resonant two-photon pumping of an atomic oxygen fragment.
Lasers at work
A paper by Jordin Kare and Tom Nugent (LaserMotive) (8045-40) will explain their work in developing laser power beaming systems to transmit electricity without wires, for application where wires are either cost-prohibitive or physically impossible. (See the article “Beam it up” published 10 March in The Economist for more on their work; view a video interview from the SPIE Newsroom below.)
Monitoring the oceans
Cancer and brain trauma
From the growing body of presentations at DSS on biomedicine and sensing technologies with health applications is a paper by Krzysztof Ptak (U.S. National Cancer Institute Center for Strategic Scientific Initiatives) on nanotechnology as a “new pipeline” for cancer diagnostics, imaging agents, and therapies (8031-63).
“The National Cancer Institute has taken the bold and visionary step of recognizing that it takes a multidisciplinary approach allowing for a convergence of molecular biology, oncology, physics, chemistry, and engineering leading to the development of clinically worthy technological solutions for the most important medical challenge of our time, namely the conquest of cancer,” said Conference Chair Tom George (Zyomed Corp.).
George pointed out that the future applications of micro- and nanotechnology research are “essentially limitless” and applicable in aerospace, transportation, sports, entertainment, and agriculture, as well as medicine.
Another paper (8029A-21), by Edward Dixon (University of Pittsburgh), looks at biomarkers for more sensitive, portable, and rapid diagnostics, prognostics, and therapeutic monitoring of traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI produced by repeated exposure to mild blasts is a signature injury of current wars, Dixon notes, and mild TBI produces subtle cognitive deficits that are difficult to detect and quantify.
Explosives and greenhouse gases
In the realm of lasers, Richard Miles, Arthur Dogariu, and James Michael (Princeton University) will present a paper (8024-16) on air lasing to detect trace particles in identifying buried explosives along a roadway, or airborne pollutants, and greenhouse gases. The work is the first demonstration of a practical air laser, Miles said. The process involves resonant two-photon dissociation of molecular oxygen and simultaneous resonant two-photon pumping of an atomic oxygen fragment.
Lasers at work
A paper by Jordin Kare and Tom Nugent (LaserMotive) (8045-40) will explain their work in developing laser power beaming systems to transmit electricity without wires, for application where wires are either cost-prohibitive or physically impossible. (See the article “Beam it up” published 10 March in The Economist for more on their work; view a video interview from the SPIE Newsroom below.)
Monitoring the oceans
A joint session on between conferences on Oil Sensing and Monitoring (8030) and Sensing for Global Health, Military Medicine, Disaster Response, and Environmental Monitoring is devoted to papers on sensing technologies used for tracking the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that began 20 April 2010.
"The session will highlight the coordinated efforts and responses of the meteorological and oceanographic community to describe the oceanographic impact of oil in the Gulf," said Weilin (Will) Hou (U.S. Naval Research Lab). Papers will examine assets used for monitoring which include remote sensing, in situ observations and models, and describe capabilities for monitoring the ocean processes in the gulf and their utilities for examining the oil spill impacts.
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