Institute of Advanced Studies

 

Biophotonics: Bringing light to life

Abstract: Light has special properties that make it a uniquely useful tool in the life sciences, for probing and manipulating structures and processes at the molecular level.

Major thrusts are in imaging (from studying the dynamics of single biomolecules to following gene expression in living animals to diagnosing early disease in patients), interventions (from manipulating sub-cellular organelles to using ultrafast pulsed lasers in treating human disease; and in analytics (from revealing patterns of gene expression to tracking stem cells to non-invasive measures of brain activity). These developments are enabled by an explosive expansion of photonic (optical) technologies from fields as diverse as telecommunications and remote sensing.

The recent convergence of biophotonics with nanotechnology is adding a new dimension to biophotonics, exploiting the novel properties of that emerge when materials and devices are at the nano scale.

13 February 2008