Dennis Matthews: The path to commercialization for medical devices

For university and government labs, biophotonic breakthroughs face many hurdles before they can be made widely available.

Dr. Dennis Matthews, Director of the NSF Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology, talks about the challenges of bringing university created technology into the marketplace in this video from SPIE:

http://spie.org/x90929.xml                                     read more. . .

NRC Releases Update to Harnessing Light: Optical Science and Engineering for the 21st Century

The National Research Council of the National Academies released a new report in August updating the 1998 "Harnessing Light" study. The report, called "Harnessing Light: Capitalizing on Optical Science Trends and Challenges for Future Research", was supported by funding from DARPA, NSF, NIST, ARO, DOE, AFOSR, NRC, OSA and SPIE.

Since the 1998 report, enormous progress has been made in the areas of optical technologies for solid-state lighting, advanced manufacturing, energy, fiber-optic telecommunications, defense, health and medicine, advanced photonic measurements and applications, and information technology. The new report assesses the current state of optics and photonics from a market perspective, prioritizes a set of grand challenges to address technological gaps, and recommends actions for future development. Chapters 2, 6, and 8 are of particular interest to the biophotonics community.

The report was released at the SPIE Optics and Photonics meeting on August 15, 2012, in San Diego, CA.  For more information and a link to a report summary and the full report, go to www.opticsandphotonics.org.

Generous scholarships for Russian science students to study abroad.

In May's issue of the journal Nature (485, 295 (17 May 2012) doi:10.1038/485295a), Quirin Shiermeier reports on Russian President Vladimir Putin's likely approval of a five billion ruble Global Education Program that would pay for around two thousand Russian students annually to study science abroad at top international universities. The program is intended to spur international collaboration as well as increase the number of Russian students in the sciences. In exchange for the opportunity to study at one of the world's top 300 institutions, students agree to return to Russia to work post-graduation.

The program will be funded for three years, initially, with the possibility of renewal upon review.  Several other countries have successfully tried similar initiatives, including China, Kazakhstan, and Brazil.

Read the full article here.

3rd International Congress on Biophotonics starts Tuesday, June 19 in Jena, Germany

The 3^rd International Congress on Biophotonics (ICOB 2012) brings together a broad biophotonics community, from medical and biological end users to industry decision makers to researchers developing new techniques and systems.  The goal is to foster interdisciplinary networking and share information among key individuals to increase success in biophotonics. 

This year’s topics include applications like oncology, infectious diseases, and ophthalmology crossing technology domains like point-of-care diagnosis, functional and multimodal imaging, and key enabling biophotonics technologies.  ICOB 2012 also has an eye on the future with sessions, discussions and forums for sharing ideas regarding biophotonics education and funding.

Concluding on June 21, this three-day event takes place at the Zeiss Planetarium, which is the oldest planetarium in the world.  For more information see the ICOB 2012website.