Biomedical Optics Scientific Community

The new Editor-in-Chief, Brian Pogue, gives an overview of the biomedical optics community

Grant Funding Needs Parallel the Start-Up Venture: An Analogy for Translational Research Success

This editorial offers some ways to think about how best to position a research group for funding, by examining the parallels between what is needed for translational grants versus industry start-ups

Ensuring Scientific Publishing Credibility in Translational Biomedical Optics.

Optics has consistently been the largest singular technology sector used in medicine, and major advances in biomedical optics are documented daily in peer-reviewed publications. However, the academic stature of this field can be damaged by weaknesses in scientific publishing, where a “credibility crisis” has emerged as a popularized and increasingly studied dialogue. While there are still relatively few overt cases of fraud or erroneous research, more insidious aspects are seen in papers with results that have either low statistical power, selective reporting of observations, or data or computer codes that cannot be independently verified. Interestingly, the same solutions that improve scientific publishing quality and credibility can also be effective tools to foster growth of individual scientists. The solution for our biomedical optics community is to ensure that researchers allow and promote reproduction of results, effectively provide access to original data and computer codes, and stay actively involved in translating their results into practice. Along the way, researchers should benefit from transdisciplinary collaborations and mentoring networks of colleagues, involving both medical and commercial expertise. Publishing more impactful publications makes the entire field more impactful, through a sequence of quality measures and a focus on translation to improve industry and medicine

Biomedical Engineering or Biomedical Optics: Will the Real Discipline Please Stand Up?

This editorial reflects on the shape of biomedical engineering as a discipline, and its relation to biomedical optics

Can Novel Technologies Improve Breast Conserving Surgery?

The practice of breast conserving surgery has been transformative for management of women’s breast cancer, and yet the current practice remains in a situation where approximately one-third of all patients have incomplete surgical resection. This is measured by the finding of clear margins on the surgical specimen, as measured by pathology sampling. This is a very active area of professional debate and research study, and the solutions are not as obvious as one might guess. Still, reviews of the status of the field suggest that technical solutions should be available to help mitigate this issue, and the tools for molecular phenotyping of tissues need to be deployed if they can provide rapid, specific diagnoses

Medical Perspective Articles to Stimulate the Field for Needs-Finding

This editorial by the journal\u27s Editor in Chief, Brian Pogue, explains the need for a new type of paper

Optical and X-Ray Technology Synergies Enabling Diagnostic and Therapeutic Applications in Medicine

X-ray and optical technologies are the two central pillars for human imaging and therapy. The strengths of x-rays are deep tissue penetration, effective cytotoxicity, and the ability to image with robust projection and computed-tomography methods. The major limitations of x-ray use are the lack of molecular specificity and the carcinogenic risk. In comparison, optical interactions with tissue are strongly scatter dominated, leading to limited tissue penetration, making imaging and therapy largely restricted to superficial or endoscopically directed tissues. However, optical photon energies are comparable with molecular energy levels, thereby providing the strength of intrinsic molecular specificity. Additionally, optical technologies are highly advanced and diversified, being ubiquitously used throughout medicine as the single largest technology sector. Both have dominant spatial localization value, achieved with optical surface scanning or x-ray internal visualization, where one often is used with the other. Therapeutic delivery can also be enhanced by their synergy, where radio-optical and optical-radio interactions can inform about dose or amplify the clinical therapeutic value. An emerging trend is the integration of nanoparticles to serve as molecular intermediates or energy transducers for imaging and therapy, requiring careful design for the interaction either by scintillation or Cherenkov light, and the nanoscale design is impacted by the choices of optical interaction mechanism. The enhancement of optical molecular sensing or sensitization of tissue using x-rays as the energy source is an important emerging field combining x-ray tissue penetration in radiation oncology with the molecular specificity and packaging of optical probes or molecular localization. The ways in which x-rays can enable optical procedures, or optics can enable x-ray procedures, provide a range of new opportunities in both diagnostic and therapeutic medicine. Taken together, these two technologies form the basis for the vast majority of diagnostics and therapeutics in use in clinical medicine

Comparison of Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Compatible Optical Detectors for In-Magnet Tissue Spectroscopy: Photodiodes Versus Silicon Photomultipliers

Tissue spectroscopy inside the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system adds a significant value by measuring fast vascular hemoglobin responses or completing spectroscopic identification of diagnostically relevant molecules. Advances in this type of spectroscopy instrumentation have largely focused on fiber coupling into and out of the MRI; however, nonmagnetic detectors can now be placed inside the scanner with signal amplification performed remotely to the high field environment for optimized light detection. In this study, the two possible detector options, such as silicon photodiodes (PD) and silicon photomultipliers (SiPM), were systematically examined for dynamic range and wavelength performance. Results show that PDs offer 108 (160 dB) dynamic range with sensitivity down to 1 pW, whereas SiPMs have 107 (140 dB) dynamic range and sensitivity down to 10 pW. A second major difference is the spectral sensitivity of the two detectors. Here, wavelengths in the 940 nm range are efficiently captured by PDs (but not SiPMs), likely making them the superior choice for broadband spectroscopy guided by MRI

Perspective review of what is needed for molecular-specific fluorescence-guided surgery

Molecular image-guided surgery has the potential for translating the tools of molecular pathology to real-time guidance in surgery. As a whole, there are incredibly positive indicators of growth, including the first United States Food and Drug Administration clearance of an enzyme-biosynthetic-activated probe for surgery guidance, and a growing number of companies producing agents and imaging systems. The strengths and opportunities must be continued but are hampered by important weaknesses and threats within the field. A key issue to solve is the inability of macroscopic imaging tools to resolve microscopic biological disease heterogeneity and the limitations in microscopic systems matching surgery workflow. A related issue is that parsing out true molecular-specific uptake from simple-enhanced permeability and retention is hard and requires extensive pathologic analysis or multiple in vivo tests, comparing fluorescence accumulation with standard histopathology and immunohistochemistry. A related concern in the field is the over-reliance on a finite number of chosen preclinical models, leading to early clinical translation when the probe might not be optimized for high intertumor variation or intratumor heterogeneity. The ultimate potential may require multiple probes, as are used in molecular pathology, and a combination with ultrahigh-resolution imaging and image recognition systems, which capture the data at a finer granularity than is possible by the surgeon. Alternatively, one might choose a more generalized approach by developing the tracer based on generic hallmarks of cancer to create a more "one-size-fits-all" concept, similar to metabolic aberrations as exploited in fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) (i.e., Warburg effect) or tumor acidity. Finally, methods to approach the problem of production cost minimization and regulatory approvals in a manner consistent with the potential revenue of the field will be important. In this area, some solid steps have been demonstrated in the use of fluorescent labeling commercial antibodies and separately in microdosing studies with small molecules. (C) The Authors

Cherenkov-excited luminescence imaging of microdose injections for novel tumor response assay

We propose a radically new assay of tumor response to chemotherapeutic agents using microdose injections of luminescent marker inks, where the response spread of the microdose injections are readout using radiotherapy sheet illumination. In this work we characterize, in tissue-simulating phantoms, a variety of luminescent marker inks that can be detected using Cherenkov-excited luminescence imaging. Luminescent marker inks studied include commercially available UV-activated tattoo inks. Initial feasibility studies to assess the use of this novel tumor response assay demonstrate key parameters including spatial resolution, variations in inclusion size, injection spread and depth detection in tissue-simulating phantoms to show promise for further application of this technology in animals. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract