Biophotonics '09: Lecture by Prof. Joseph A. Izatt

Optical coherence tomography for structural, functional, and quantitative phase imaging in biomedicine and biotechnology

Professor Joseph A. Izatt

Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708 USA

Tel.: +1 919 660-5128
Fax: +1 919 613-9144
http://www.bme.duke.edu/faculty/izatt/index.php  

Abstract

Optical coherence-based imaging techniques including optical coherence tomography (OCT), optical coherence microscopy (OCM), and spectral domain phase microscopy (SDPM) use low-coherence spectral interferometry to obtain nanometer to micron-scale measurements of structure, motion, and molecular composition in living cells, tissues, and organisms. OCT has become a standard diagnostic tool in clinical ophthalmology, and is undergoing clinical trials for other human diagnostic applications including cancer detection and evaluation of cardiovascular disease. Within the past few years, dramatic technology advances have increased the performance of OCT and OCM systems manyfold, and are now capable of micron-scale two and three-dimensional functional and molecular imaging noninvasively in living systems. Functional extensions of OCT for Doppler blood flow imaging, polarization-based tissue birefringence mapping, and molecular imaging using intrinsic and nanoparticle-based contrast media are undergoing rapid development. Recent technology advances have also enabled the design of OCT-based highly phase-stable interference microscopes capable of resolving nanometer-scale structures and motions in living cells in the optical far field with ms temporal resolution. These new capabilities are being used to probe cellular internal and external surfaces and their responses to chemical and mechanical stimuli. The lectures will review the operating principles of all of these technologies and provide an overview of selected applications. Applications for noninvasive, quantitative characterization of ophthalmic disease progression, for structural and functional phenotyping of small animal models of importance in developmental biology, and for noncontact probing of cellular dynamics and rheology will be covered in some detail.

References

[1] J.A. Izatt and M.A. Choma, "Theory of Optical Coherence Tomography," in Optical Coherence Tomography: Technology and Applications, W. Drexler and J.G. Fujimoto, Eds., Springer, 2008.

[2] A.M. Davis, F.G. Rothenberg, N. Shepherd, and J.A. Izatt, "In vivo spectral domain optical coherence tomography volumetric imaging and spectral Doppler velocimetry of early stage embryonic chicken heart development," J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 25, 3134-43 (2008).

[3] E.J. McDowell, A.K. Ellerbee, M.A. Choma, B.E. Applegate, and J. A. Izatt, "Spectral domain phase microscopy for local measurements of cytoskeletal rheology in cells," J. Biomed. Optics 12, 041215 (2007).

Biography

Joseph A. Izatt is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Ophthalmology, and Program Director for Biophotonics at the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He is also Chairman and Chief Technology Officer at Bioptigen, Inc., a North Carolina startup company commercializing optical coherence tomography technology. Dr. Izatt's research interests include biomedical optics and spectroscopy, coherence-based optical imaging in scattering media, and novel instrumentation for minimally invasive medical diagnostics. Dr. Izatt is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), and Optical Society of America (OSA).

Slides

• Optical coherence tomography for structural, functional, and quantitative phase imaging in biomedicine and biotechnology

Link to program

• Session 7

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