Advanced Biophotonics ― Tissue Optical Sectioning

"Preface Photonics is the science and technology of generation, manipulation and detection of light. The field uses the quantum-like particles of light, i.e., the photons, instead of electrons to transmit, process, and store information. Biophotonics is recently emerged from the applications of photonics in the fields of biology and medicine. The invention of lasers in the 1960s revolutionized photonics, and made rapid technological advancements that produced useful tools, such as bar code scanners, CD players and laser pointers that are already playing an important part in our daily life. The fluorescence microscope is the first taste of the power of Biophotonics that brought us the important molecular information within cells in almost all biological laboratories. Today, biophotonics is widely regarded as the key science upon which the next generation of clinical tools and biomedical research instrumentation will be based. Although nature has used the principle of biophotonics to harness light for photosynthesis, it wasn't until about 10 years ago that a substantial translation of photonics technologies to biological applications began to transform medical and life sciences. The knowledge of biophotonics essentially includes the fundamentals of many interdisciplinary fields and how they are uniquely related to each other. Researchers and students who are interested in biophotonics should have a solid understanding of the physics of light, and the engineering of devices and instruments that are used to generate, modify, and manipulate light. On the other hand, they must also understand the fundamentals of biology and medicine, such as the molecular and cellular processes that occur in living systems to properly and meaningfully utilize the"--

Ruikang K. Wang, PhD, is a professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington. A fellow of the Optical Society of America, Dr. Wang has authored or co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, one book on optical information processing, and 12 book chapters. His research interests include biophotonics and imaging, optical coherence tomography, optical microangiography, and their applications in neurology, ophthalmology, dermatology, and cancer.

Valery V. Tuchin, PhD, holds the Optics and Biophotonics Chair and is a director of the Research-Educational Institute of Optics and Biophotonics at Saratov State University. He is also head of the Laboratory on Laser Diagnostics of Technical and Living Systems at the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Precise Mechanics and Control and a Finland Distinguished Professor in the Optoelectronics and Measurement Techniques Laboratory at the University of Oulu. A SPIE fellow, Dr. Tuchin has authored numerous books and more than 300 peer-reviewed papers. His research interests include biophotonics, biomedical optics and laser medicine, and physics of optical and laser measurements.