Events Calendar

Spatial Light Interference Microscopy (SLIM) for Quantitative Biomedicine

Speaker: Prof. Gabriel Popescu, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Talk Title: Spatial Light Interference Microscopy (SLIM) for Quantitative Biomedicine

Series: Medical Imaging Seminar Series

Abstract: Most living cells do not absorb or scatter light significantly, i.e. they are essentially transparent, or phase objects. Phase contrast microscopy proposed by Zernike in the 1930s represents a major advance in intrinsic contrast imaging, as it reveals inner details of transparent structures without staining or tagging. While phase contrast is sensitive to minute optical path-length changes in the cell, down to the nanoscale, the information retrieved is only qualitative. Quantifying cell-induced shifts in the optical path-lengths permits nanometer scale measurements of structures and motions in a non-contact, non-invasive manner. Thus, quantitative phase imaging (QPI) has recently become an active field of study and various experimental approaches have been proposed.

Recently, we have developed Spatial Light Interference microscopy (SLIM) as a highly sensitive QPI method. Due to its nanometer pathlength sensitivity, SLIM enables interesting structure and dynamics studies over broad spatial (nanometers-centimeters) and temporal (milliseconds-weeks) scales. I will review our recent results on applying SLIM to basic cell studies, such as intracellular transport, cell growth, and single cell tomography. Recently, we have demonstrated that SLIM is a valuable tool for cancer diagnosis and prognosis in unlabeled biopsies. This capability is particularly valuable in prostate pathology.



Biography: Gabriel Popescu is an Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received the B.S. and M.S. in Physics from University of Bucharest, in 1995 and 1996, respectively, obtained his M.S. in Optics in 1999 and the Ph.D. in Optics in 2002 from the School of Optics/ CREOL (now the College of Optics and Photonics), University of Central Florida. Dr. Popescu continued his training with the G. R. Harrison Spectroscopy Laboratory at M.I.T., working as a postdoctoral associate. He joined Illinois in August 2007 where he directs the Quantitative Light Imaging Laboratory (QLI Lab) at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Dr. Popescu is an Associate Editor of Optics Express and Biomedical Optics Express, and Editorial Board Member for Journal of Biomedical Optics and Scientific Reports. He authored a book, edited another book, authored 118 journal publications, 175 conference presentations, 32 patents, gave 150 invited talks. Dr. Popescu founded Phi Optics, Inc., a start-up company that commercializes quantitative phase imaging technology. He is OSA Fellow and SPIE Fellow.

Host: Professor Justin Haldar

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Talyia Veal