Photonics for a Better World

Raphael Yuste discusses work in brain mapping in a new video interview with SPIE. Rafael Yuste and his research group at Columbia University are trying to image the neural circuits of the brain in hopes of gaining a better understanding of how the brain functions. However, said Yuste in a recent tour and video interview of his lab with SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics , “The methods in neuroscience have not been there yet.” Yuste is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and co-director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Circuits at Columbia. He and David Boas (director of the optics division of the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School) chair the new Brain applications track at SPIE Photonics West 2017 in San Francisco, running 28 January through 2 February. Using novel optical techniques such as two-photon and nonlinear microscopy, Yuste’s lab is trying t...

Photo by Dale Johnson Looking into the proverbial crystal ball is a risky endeavor. " Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X rays will prove to be a hoax. " William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, president of the British Royal Society 1890-1895. " I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. " Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM 1914-1956. But we humans seem to find the urge to do so to be irresistible on certain occasions, particularly anniversaries. At the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste recently, optics and photonics experts offered a few guesses as to what may happen over the next 50 years. What new capabilities will technology offer us two-thirds of the way into the Century of the Photon? Fast-forward to 2065, when … Solar energy provides 50% of the world’s still increasing energy demand. A second laser fusion power station h...

Editor’s note: Guest blogger Khushi Vyas , Outreach Coordinator for the SPIE Student Chapter at Imperial College London , was among students at the biophotonics and imaging graduate summer school 15-20 June at the National Biophotonics Imaging Platform Ireland (NBIPI), National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway. The first of two posts filed by Khushi describes the topics and trends discussed during the school. BIGSS participants enjoyed an energizing week in Galway. The recent fifth annual Biophotonics and Imaging Graduate Summer School (BIGSS) offered a great platform for multidisciplinary learning in biophotonics and fostered communication across several disciplines. Students went home with new ideas, streamlined directions for research, new contacts, and the motivation to contribute towards finding solutions for unmet clinical needs. Participants included approximately 50 graduate students and early-career professionals and seven distinguished guest speakers working ...

For 10 years since its founding, the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle has been working toward a greater understanding of the brain, "inspired by the quest to uncover the essence of what makes us human," according to its website. It's a timely quest, given the "big neuroscience" efforts around the world -- including the Human Brain Project in Europe and the BRAIN Initiative in the United States. SPIE Newsroom video interview with Michael Hawrylycz People are working on many fronts to learn about the brain and treat its injuries and disorders. Photonics is a key tool in this effort. A recent SPIE Newsroom visit to the institute resulted in this video interview with Michael Hawrylycz , an investigator and director of the Modeling, Analysis, and Theory Group. If you haven't seen the video, it's worth a look in light of the publication, on the one-year anniversary of President Obama's announcement of the BRAIN Initiative, of two ...

Brain mapping -- using light to observe and track neuron activity in the brain -- holds much promise for treating some of the most troubling conditions. Among its goals are treatment of stroke, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, and even depression. The field is claiming the attention of R&D funders as well. A White House announcement last week of a potential$100 million funding pot for brain research , as part of the presidential budget proposal for fiscal year 2014, made waves that echoed the response to an announcement last month of a far-reaching brain research program in Europe. As Mike Hatcher , editor of optics.org, noted, the White House-proposed BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnoloiges) initiative still requires backing by a fractious Congress. “But if the public-private scheme does go ahead it will mirror an even larger funding proposal in Europe, where -- along with graphene research -- the ‘Human Brain Project’ was earmarked as ...

Repairing brain disorders such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and chronic pain, by targeted application of light: research by the Synthetic Neurobiology Group led by Ed Boyden at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has the potential to change many lives through photonics. Boyden described his work in a new video interview for the SPIE Newsroom. Read more here: Boyden's article on 'Controlling the brain with light,' SPIE Newsroom 'Seeing the light,' MIT News 'Selective brain stimulation with light,' SPIE Newsroom

“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, chem...