Molecular Optical Imaging Techniques for Biomedical Applications

Progress in the biological sciences has often been associated with the evolution of optical imaging and the corresponding capacity to identify spatially distributed biomarkers. At the organ and organism level, optical biological imaging has traditionally focused on studying thin sections of dead specimens that produce minimal photon scattering. But obviously the tendency in the biological community is to study living biological specimens in unperturbed environments and over time; therefore advances in optical imaging methods are focusing on several different physical ways to achieve in vivo molecular microscopy o macroscopy imaging. This talk will focus on different optical techniques we have recently developed that allow for noninvasive or minimally invasive molecular imaging, with particular focus given to small-animal imaging and nonlinear techniques.