From The Editor | January 24, 2013

Inside BiOS 2013: ‘Jaw-Dropping' Presentations And Trends In Biophotonics

By Ron Grunsby, Editor

At a time when many industries are plagued by uncertainty or are in decline, biomedical optics and biophotonics are thriving. A 2012 report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. predicts that the global market for biophotonics will exceed $99 billion by 2018. Based on the opinions of experts I recently interviewed and the level of participation expected at SPIE BiOS 2013, such projections appear realistic.

Part of SPIE Photonics West 2013, BiOS will be held Feb. 2 to 7 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The event brings together members of industry and academia to present and discuss cutting-edge information on biomedical optics, diagnostics, and therapeutics; biophotonics; molecular imaging; optical microscopy; optical coherence tomography; and optogenetics.

“Biophotonics is a highly interdisciplinary field that tries to answer the needs of biomedical sciences, all the way from fundamental biological processes to clinical applications,” Aydogan Ozcan, Ph.D., associate professor at UCLA in the electrical engineering and bioengineering departments, told me. “It is a very timely field because this is the age of interdisciplinary scientists and researchers, and the needs and unanswered questions remain enormous.”

Ozcan is the first winner of the Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award and will receive the honor at the Hot Topics BiOS plenary event. The award recognizes his seminal contributions to computational imaging, sensing, and biophotonics technologies impacting telemedicine and global health challenges.

“One area that excites me is the ‘entry to the home’ in every possible way,” Ozcan said. “Bringing point-of-care resources to the home through consumer-grade biomedical technologies is very important, and biophotonics, as a field, will play a key role there.”

I also spoke with Peter Hallett, director of marketing and industry relations at SPIE, who referred to interest in biomedical optics and biophotonics as “strikingly up.”

“One of the biggest trends is investment in healthcare, and the biomedical aspect of reducing costs and advancing outcomes continues to rise,” Hallett told me.

A record 1,900 papers (up by 11% over last year) will be presented at BiOS, and more than 220 exhibitors will participate in the BiOS Expo on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 2 and 3. BiOS is organized into five tracks:

  • Photonic Therapeutics and Diagnostics
  • Clinical Technologies and Systems
  • Tissue Optics, Laser-Tissue Interaction, and Tissue Engineering
  • Biomedical Spectroscopy, Microscopy, and Imaging
  • Nano/Biophotonics

Hallett strongly recommends attending Hot Topics, which will be held on Saturday, Feb. 2, from 7 to 9 p.m. in Room 134. “There will be a very select group of brief presentations featuring leading researchers in biophotonics talking about things that will make your jaw drop,” Hallett said. “To give you an indication of how compelling the content is, the event will be held on a Saturday night in a room that holds 700 people.”

Presentations will include:

  • Optogenetics and Hybrid-Optical Control of Cells, by Ernst Bamberg, Max Planck Institute
  • MEMS Tunable VCSEL Technology for Ultrahigh-Speed OCT, by Ben Potsaid, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Patterned Multiphoton Photoactivation in Scattering Tissue by Temporal Focusing, by Dan Oron, Weizmann Institute of Science
  • Clinical Requirements for Optical Imaging in Medical Robotics, by Jonathan Sorger, Intuitive Surgical, Inc.
  • Camera-Based Functional Imaging of Tissue Hemodynamics, by Bernard Choi, Beckman Laser Institute
  • Multiwave Approach to Elasticity Imaging for Cancer Detection, by Mathias Fink, Institute ESPCI, CNRS
  • Functional Optical Imaging of the Brain, by Joe Culver, Washington University in St. Louis
  • Photoacoustic Flow Cytometry: Journey in the Blood, by Vladimir Zharov, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Also at Hot Topics, James Fujimoto, Elihu Thomson professor of electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will receive the Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award in recognition of his pioneering research in optical coherence tomography and its development as a clinical tool.

Every year at Photonics West, I have conversation after conversation about groundbreaking biomedical optics and biophotonics-related products and applications. With BiOS accounting for 1,900 of the 4,500 papers being presented at the show this year, I’m counting on more “jaw-dropping” moments.