Making light work: illuminating the future of biomedical optics

• Professor Clare Elwell, University College London, UK
• Audio recording (mp3)

Clare Elwell is Professor of Medical Physics in the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering, University College London (UCL). She obtained her BSc in Physics with Medical Physics in 1988 from the University of Exeter, where she also completed her MPhil (1991) whilst working as a Clinical Physicist running urodynamics, respiratory function and sleep studies. Following a move to UCL she completed a PhD in 1995 investigating the application of near infrared spectroscopy to measurements of cerebral haemodynamics in adults. She now leads the Near Infrared Spectroscopy Research Group in the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory at UCL and holds honorary positions at University College London Hospital and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Professor Elwell’s research focus is on advanced instrumentation development, improved data analysis methods and application of near infrared spectroscopy technologies in the clinical and life sciences. Her current research projects include multimodal monitoring of adult patients with traumatic brain injury, application of optical topography to monitor cerebral haemodynamics in children undergoing cardiothoracic procedures, development of mathematical models of cerebral physiology to aid data interpretation and the investigation of functional activation in the developing brain.

She is an Executive Committee Member of the International Society on Oxygen Transport to Tissue. 

• Professor Jeremy Hebden, University College London, UK
• Audio recording (mp3)

After obtaining a PhD in astronomy and spending two years in Arizona exploring high resolution methods for mapping stellar atmospheres, I spent five years at the University of Utah investigating new optical imaging techniques for functional imaging of human tissues. I pioneered the experimental development of time-resolved methods which overcome the blurring effects of scatter. A Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship enabled me to establish a group at UCL devoted to the development of clinical prototypes for optical imaging of human subjects, with particular emphasis on the study of the premature infant brain at risk of damage resulting from hypoxia-ischaemia. My group has developed a time-resolved instrument for three-dimensional optical tomography, utilising unique source and detector technology. It has been used to produce the first whole-brain images of evoked functional activity in the newborn infant, and this work is now focussed on the study of seizure. In addition, we have built systems for mapping the haemodynamic response in the cortex to sensory stimulation and other cognitive activity, and to acquire EEG measurements simultaneously. I currently hold the appointment of Professor of Biomedical Optics, and was appointed Head of the Department of Medical Physics & Bioengineering at UCL in 2008. 

• Professor Paul Beard, University College London, UK

Paul Beard obtained a BSc in Physics at UCL in 1987. Following a period at Marconi Underwater Systems Ltd developing passive fibre optic sonar arrays he returned to UCL and was awarded a PhD in photoacoustic spectroscopy in 1996. He is currently Professor of Biomedical Photoacoustics in the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering, UCL and holds an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship. His research interests lie in optical ultrasound detection, light transport and acoustic propagation modeling, quantitative photoacoustic image reconstruction, spectroscopic inversion methods and ultrasound metrology. 

• Professor Elizabeth Hillman, Columbia University, USA
• Audio recording (mp3)

Elizabeth Hillman PhD is Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at Columbia University in the city of New York. She received her PhD in Medical Physics from University College London in 2002, working on the development of time-resolved optical tomography for neonatal brain imaging. Following her PhD Dr Hillman worked for a start-up company in Boston, MA, and then completed post-doctoral training and became junior faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School developing novel high-resolution optical methods for exposed brain imaging. In 2006 she moved to Columbia University to establish her own lab which specializes in using light to capture information from living tissues on length scales from microns to centimeters using techniques including two-photon microscopy, laminar optical tomography, dynamic contrast enhanced molecular imaging and hyperspectral imaging. A particular focus of her research is using these techniques to explore the relationship between neuronal activity and blood flow in the brain. Dr Hillman is an Associate Editor for Biomedical Optics Express, and a Topical Editor for Applied Optics. She is the recipient of NSF CAREER, Human Frontier Science Program and Wallace Coulter Foundation Early Career awards. She has authored 39 peer reviewed articles and over 53 scientific abstracts.  

• Sir Peter Knight FRS Principal, The Kavli Royal Society International Centre
• Audio recording (mp3)

• Professor Joseph Culver, Washington University in St Louis, USA

Dr Culver obtained his PhD in physics at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr Robin Hochstrasser and Dr Arjun G Yodh developing ultrafast laser spectroscopy. For a postdoc, he switched to the field of Biomedical Optics, and worked in collaboration with Dr Britton Chance and once more with Dr Yodh. He then took an Instructor faculty position (2001-2003) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School in the Department of Radiology working in the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. While at MGH Dr Culver earned an NIH K25 "Mentored Quantitative Research Career Development" award. In 2003 he moved to Washington University to join the Department of Radiology, where he is now an Associate Professor. His research program is focused on developing imaging technology for both preclinical molecular imaging and human functional neuroimaging. 

• Professor Matthias Kohl-Bareis, University of Applied Sciences Koblenz, Germany

After finishing his physics course at Berlin university with a thesis on atomic physics, Matthias Kohl-Bareis started with work in medical optics. During his PhD he used optical methods for the detection and therapy of cancer. As a postdoc fellow at University College London with D. Delpy and M. Cope he developed instrumentation and methods of diffuse optical spectroscopy. This was followed by a few years with A.

Villringer working on optical brain imaging both in humans and animals at Charité, Humboldt University Berlin. Since 2001 he is professor at RheinAhrCampus, University of Applied Sciences Koblenz, Germany, with interests in optical monitoring of brain and muscle. 

• Professor Clare Elwell, University College London, UK
• Audio recording (mp3)

Clare Elwell is Professor of Medical Physics in the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering, University College London (UCL). She obtained her BSc in Physics with Medical Physics in 1988 from the University of Exeter, where she also completed her MPhil (1991) whilst working as a Clinical Physicist running urodynamics, respiratory function and sleep studies. Following a move to UCL she completed a PhD in 1995 investigating the application of near infrared spectroscopy to measurements of cerebral haemodynamics in adults. She now leads the Near Infrared Spectroscopy Research Group in the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory at UCL and holds honorary positions at University College London Hospital and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Professor Elwell’s research focus is on advanced instrumentation development, improved data analysis methods and application of near infrared spectroscopy technologies in the clinical and life sciences. Her current research projects include multimodal monitoring of adult patients with traumatic brain injury, application of optical topography to monitor cerebral haemodynamics in children undergoing cardiothoracic procedures, development of mathematical models of cerebral physiology to aid data interpretation and the investigation of functional activation in the developing brain.

She is an Executive Committee Member of the International Society on Oxygen Transport to Tissue. 

• Professor Arjun Yodh, University of Pennsylvania, USA
• Audio recording (mp3)

Arjun G Yodh is the James M. Skinner Professor of Science and the Director of the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matterat the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. His home department is Physics & Astronomy, and he holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Radiation Oncology in the Medical School. Yodh received his BSc from Cornell University and his PhD from Harvard University. He joined the UPenn faculty in 1988 following a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at AT&T Bell Laboratories. His current interests span condensed matter physics, biomedical optics & biophysics, and the optical sciences. Yodh’s biomedical optics laboratory explores a variety of issues ranging from fundamental studies of light transport, image reconstruction and optical technology development, to identification of relevant clinical problems. Current research is using diffuse optical tools for functional imaging/monitoring of hemodynamics in brain, breast & muscle, for monitoring tumor responses during cancer therapy, and for investigation of new dosimetry schemes in photodynamic therapy. 

• Professor David Boas, Harvard Medical School, USA
• Audio recording (mp3)

Dr David A Boas is an Associate Professor at the Harvard Medical School and Associate Physicist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He received his Bachelors Degree in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY in 1991 and his Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, also in Physics. His research interests include the following: photon migration in highly scattering media with emphasis on diffuse optical tomography, clinical applications of diffuse optical tomography in brain and breast radiology and fundamental studies of brain function and stroke using diffuse optical tomography and optical microscopy. Dr Boas has been an Associate Editor of Optics Express and

Guest Editor of Medical Physics and Journal of Biomedical Optics. He is a member of SPIE and the Optical Society of America (OSA), and has served as Conference Program Chair for various OSA topical meetings. 

• Professor Yoko Hoshi, Tokyo Institute of Psychiatry, Japan
• Audio recording (mp3)

Yoko Hoshi has been a Research Director of Integrated Neuroscience Research Team at Tokyo Institute of Psychiatry since 2000. She is a project leader of “Research on Neural Basis of ‘Kansei’ and its Visualization” supported by Tokyo Metropolitan Organization for Medical Research. She graduated from School of Medicine Akita University and received a MD degree. She was trained as a pediatrician at Hokkaido University, and then started basic research on NIRS, including the biochemistry of mitochondria, and its application especially to neuroscience at Research Institute of Electronic Science, Hokkaido University in 1988

She received a PhD from School of Medicine Hokkaido University in 1990. Her recent research interests are neural mechanisms of emotion & brain development, and developing new optical techniques.  

• Professor Jeremy Hebden, University College London, UK
• Audio recording (mp3)

After obtaining a PhD in astronomy and spending two years in Arizona exploring high resolution methods for mapping stellar atmospheres, I spent five years at the University of Utah investigating new optical imaging techniques for functional imaging of human tissues. I pioneered the experimental development of time-resolved methods which overcome the blurring effects of scatter. A Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship enabled me to establish a group at UCL devoted to the development of clinical prototypes for optical imaging of human subjects, with particular emphasis on the study of the premature infant brain at risk of damage resulting from hypoxia-ischaemia. My group has developed a time-resolved instrument for three-dimensional optical tomography, utilising unique source and detector technology. It has been used to produce the first whole-brain images of evoked functional activity in the newborn infant, and this work is now focussed on the study of seizure. In addition, we have built systems for mapping the haemodynamic response in the cortex to sensory stimulation and other cognitive activity, and to acquire EEG measurements simultaneously. I currently hold the appointment of Professor of Biomedical Optics, and was appointed Head of the Department of Medical Physics & Bioengineering at UCL in 2008. 

• Dr Willy Colier, Artinis Medical Systems BV, The Netherlands

Willy Colier studied physics at the Universtiy of Twente in the Netherlands. In 1991 he started a PhD at the department of Physiology of the University of Nijmegen. He worked there on the application side as well as on the technical aspects of Near Infrared Spectroscopy. His PhD thesis, “Near Infrared Spectrosocpy: Toy o r Tool”, was published in 1995. After this period he stayed working on NIRS in Nijmegen as a postdoctoral researcher for departments like Neurology, Geriatric Medicine and Physiology. Dr Colier was part of various national and international projects, like the BioMed Concerted Actions on NIRS. He published over 60 papers on NIRS and related subjects. In 2001 he started together with a colleague his own company, Artinis Medical Systems. The company is now one of the world leading companies on NIRS, but also in the field of radiological quality control.  

• Professor Rinaldo Cubeddu, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

After his Doctor degree in Physics at the University of Pavia in 1967, he joined the Politecnico of Milan, where he became full professor in Physics in 1986. During his academic career he was elected to institutional positions as Director of the Physics Department and Member of the Academic Senate. At present he has been re-elected as Director of the Department. He is Head of the Laboratory of Photonics for Health, Food and Cultural Heritage and he is responsible for the activity in the field of Biomedical Optics and Laser Application in Biomedicine in the Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnology of the Italian National Research Council and in the European Large Scale Facility CUSBO Center for Ultrafast Science and Biomedical Optics).

During his activity he has been member of both national and international committees and coordinator of national and international projects. At present he is coordinator of the VII FP project Neuropt on Optical Brain Topography. He has also been chair and co-chair of international conferences. He has been member of the Editorial Board of Physics in Medicine and Biology.

His research activity, documented by more then 200 publications in international reviews, has been devoted to the development of laser systems for applications in biology and medicine. Within this research field he has been among the first to develop and utilize innovative time resolved instrumentation in the picosecond and femtosecond time domain. The main applications have been in the fields of fluorescence diagnosis and the characterization of optical properties of tissues in vivo. In particular for fluorescence diagnosis it can be reported the use of a FLIM (Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging) system for a clinical study on skin cancer, while for the Photon Migration field it can be mentioned the applications to optical mammography and brain functional imaging. The instrumentation developed has been also used for fruit quality evaluation and for diagnostic purposes on art works in Cultural Heritage. 

• Dr Atsushi Maki, Hitachi, Japan

Dr Maki received his MS degree in 1990 and was awarded a PhD in 1997, both in Mechanical Engineering from Keio University in Japan.

Dr Maki currently works for in the Business Incubation Division for Hitachi Ltd. His research interests include optical technology for the measurement of biological tissue and organs, developmental state of human brain functions, mental states of human brain functions and applied brain science.

Awards received include the R & D 100 Awards from MIT press (2002), Okouchi Memorial Prize (2003), Japanese invention award (2004) and the Prize of Science and Technology from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2007).  

• Dr Wolfgang Becker, Becker & Hickl GmbH, Germany

Dr Becker is a specialist of optical short-time measurement techniques and obtained his PhD 1979 in Berlin, Germany. Since 1993 he is the head of Becker & Hickl GmbH in Berlin. His field of interest is development and application of time-correlated single photon counting techniques. He is an amateur astronomer and telescope maker and likes cats, skiing and beach volleyball.

• Professor Randall Barbour, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, USA

While originally trained as a biochemist, Dr Randall Barbour has focused his research efforts in the field of biomedical optics since 1985. His principal contributions include the first description of diffuse NIRS tomography in 1988, diffuse fluorescence tomography in 1995 and dynamic imaging in 1999. He has also gone on to develop a line of commerical NIRS imaging systems offered by NIRx Medical Technologies. These systems provide for 3D tomographic and topographic investigations of the head and other body structures and have been adopted for small animal use. Dr Barbour has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1993, has published more the 200 peer reivew and conference reports and regularly serves on NIH study section reveiws.  

• Professor Martin Wolf, University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland

PD Dr Martin Wolf received his MS degree in electrical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) in Zurich Switzerland in 1990. His focus was on biomedical and power engineering. During his PhD (ETHZ 1997) he specialized in biomedical optics, i.e. near infrared spectroscopy to investigate tissue oxygenation. As a postdoctoral research associate he worked at the Clinic for Neonatology, University Hospital Zurich until 1999, when he joined the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He developed imaging methods to non-invasively study hemodynamics and oxygenation of the brain and muscle. Since 2002 he heads the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory at the Clinic of Neonatology, University Hospital Zurich, where he currently expands the research in biomedical optics to many clinical fields. In 2004 he became lecturer of the University Zurich and in 2009 at the ETHZ. He is academic affiliate of the Biomedical Engineering Cluster, Switzerland’s first Masters Program in Biomedical Engineering, and member of the Center for Imaging Sciences and Technologies and the Neuroscience Center Zurich, all at ETH. 

• Professor Gunnar Naulaers, University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium

Degree of Medical Doctor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 1990. Postgraduate training in Paediatrics and Neonatology 1990-1997 at the University Hospital Leuven.
Staff member Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the department of Paediatrics, University Hospital Leuven since 1997.
Head of the neonatal intensive care unit, University Hospitals Leuven, since 2007.

Research: 2002-2004, Clinical Doctoral Grant A6/5 – CM. D 11.354, Fund for Scientific Research, Flanders, Belgium
2003, PhD Doctor in Medical Sciences with the thesis: Non-invasive measurement of the cerebral and splanchnic circulation by near-infrared spectroscopy. Acta Biomedica Lovaniensia 295; 2003
2006-2010, Project for Fund for Scientific Research Flanders ZKB4380 G.0519.06: Non-invasive measurement of the neonatal cerebral oxygenation and circulation
2010, Coordinator for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy in the HIP-trial (Management of Hypotension In the Preterm Extremely Low Gestational Age Newborn)
104 international publications ; 18 national publications.

Promotor of the following PhD Thesis: Joke Vanderhaegen. The effect of physiological and pathophysiological changes on the neonatal cerebral oxygenation as measured by near-infrared spectroscopy. Acta biomedical Lovaniensa 485; 2010
Anne Debeer. Antenatal interventions to promote lung maturation and growth in prematurity. Acta Biomedica Lovaniensa 506; 2010
Petra Lemmers. The clinical use of near-infrared monitored cerebral oxygen saturation and extraction in the preterm infant. Utrecht. May 2010. 

• Professor Gorm Greisen, Neonatology, Rigshospitalet and University of Copenhagen, Denmark
• Audio recording (mp3)

Professor of paediatrics and head of neonatology at Rigshospitalet and the University of Copenhagen. Thesis on cerebral blood flow in mechanically ventilated infants 1989. Research in neonatal brain circulation, brain function, brain injury, and neurodevelopmental follow-up. Some experience with health services in developing countries. Some research and writings in clincal and research ethics. Involved in the European Society of Paediatric Research. 200 publications. J-index 31. 

• Dr Martin Smith, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College London Hospitals, UK
• Audio recording (mp3)

Martin Smith is Consultant and Honorary Professor in Neuroscience Critical Care, and Director of neurosurgical critical care services, at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College London Hospitals. His major clinical and research interests are in the monitoring and management of acute brain injury, including the development and assessment of optical techniques to monitor cerebral haemodynamics, oxygenation and cellular metabolic status at the bedside, and the application of novel biomarkers of brain injury.

Martin is Vice President for Education and Scientific Affairs of the Society of Neuroscience in Anesthesia and Critical Care and Past President of the Neuroanaesthesia Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology, guest editor of Anesthesia and Analgesia and editor of Continuing Education in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain. He is the training programme director for the Academic Clinical Fellows in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine at University College London and head of the Respiratory, Anaesthesia and Critical Care Theme of the UCL/UCLH Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre. 

• Professor Hellmuth Obrig, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, German
• Audio recording (mp3)

1985-1992 Medical training FU Berlin, Universität Wien, final year in London
1993-94 Dept. Neurology, Klinikum Großhadern Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
1994 Promotion‚ Dr. med.‘ Berlin
1994-2004 Dept. of Neurology Charité Berlin
2001 ‘Facharzt’ (board certified neurologist)
2002 ‘Habilitation’ Neurology
2004-2008 Senior Registrar Dept. Neurology, Charité, Berlin
Since 04/2008 Head of the Clinic for Cognitive Neurology, Universitätsklinikum Leipzig.

Research areas: Non-invasive optical imaging in neuroscience and neurology; EEG; neurovascular coupling; stroke; language development; aphasia treatment. 

• Professor Gentaro Taga, The University of Tokyo, Japan
• Audio recording (mp3)

Gentaro Taga received a bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Tokyo in 1989. He received a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Tokyo in 1994 on a modeling study of the neuro-musulo-skeletal system for human locomotion under supervisor Prof. Hiroshi Shimizu. From 1994 to 1995, he was a JSPS postdoctoral fellow at Professor Masatoshi Murase’s biophysics laboratory, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University and at Professor Jim Collins’s laboratory, Neuromuscular Research Center, Boston University. In 1995, as an assistant professor he joined Prof. Kunihiko Kaneko’s research group of complex systems, Department of Pure & Applied Sciences, University of Tokyo. In 1998 he stayed at Prof. Shinsuke Shimojo’s psychophysics laboratory, California Institute of Technology as a HFSP short-term fellow. Since 2000, he has been a faculty member of Graduate School of Education, University of Tokyo. He was a principal investigator of PRESTO (1999-2002), SORST(2002-2003), and CREST(2003-2009) of Japan Science and Technology Agency and leaded research projects on developmental brain sciences using a novel neuroimaging technique. Currently, he is a professor at Graduate School of Education, University of Tokyo. 

• Discussion: Future meetings for developers and users of biomedical optics technologies
• Audio recording (mp3)

• Professor Robert Boushel, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Robert Boushel is a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, and adjunct professor in the Department of Medicine, McGill University, and Department of Exercise Science, Concordia University, in Montreal. Primary research themes are cardiovascular regulation during exercise and mitochondrial function. Specific areas include the regulation of cardiac output, regional and microvascular blood flow in normoxia and hypoxia, and the matching of regional substrate delivery to muscle in relation to mitochondrial capacity. These topics are studied in healthy sedentary untrained and trained individuals and in clinical populations such as type 2 diabetes, COPD, and heart failure.  

• Dr Adam Gibson, University College London, UK

• Professor Bruce Tromberg, University of California, USA
• Audio recording (mp3)

Dr Tromberg is the Director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic (BLI) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and principal investigator of the Laser Microbeam and Medical Program (LAMMP), an NIH National Biomedical Technology Center. He is a Professor in the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Surgery and co-leads the Onco-imaging and Spectroscopy Program in UCI’s Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr Tromberg completed a Hewitt Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in Photomedicine at the BLI in 1989 and has been a member of the BLI faculty since 1990. He received a BA in Chemistry from Vanderbilt University and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Tennessee as a Department of Energy Fellow at the Oak Ridge National Lab. His research interests are in Biophotonics and Biomedical Optics, including diffuse optics, non-linear microscopy, and photodynamic therapy. 

• Professor Brian Pogue, Dartmouth College, USA
• Audio recording (mp3)

Brian W Pogue, PhD is Dean of Graduate Studies at Dartmouth College and Professor of Engineering Sciences, Physics & Astronomy, as well as Professor of Surgery at Dartmouth Medical School. He has BSc and MSc degrees in Physics from York University and a PhD in Medical Physics from McMaster University, in Canada. He holds a Research Scientist appointment through the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital for ongoing research into photodynamic therapy imaging and dosimetry. He has published over 300 papers and abstracts in the areas of biomedical optics, diffuse spectral tomography, breast cancer imaging and photodynamic therapy of cancer. His research is funded through two program grants and several individual grants from the National Cancer Institute. He is Deputy Editor for the journal Optics Letters and editorial board member for Medical Physics, the Journal of Biomedical Optics, and the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B. 

• Professor Marco Ferrari, University of L’Aquila, Italy
• Audio recording (mp3)

Past appointments and Education: Feb 1988-Oct 2000, Associate Professor of Biochemistry, University of L'Aquila; July 1986-Jan1988, Visiting Assistant, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA; Dec 1982-June 1986, Researcher, Istituto Superiore Sanità, Rome; July 1977, Doctor in Medicine, I University of Rome.

Since the 1980 he has been involved in the study of brain/muscle oxygenation pathophysiology by non-invasive near infrared (NIR) (700-1100 nm) spectroscopy (NIRS) using different techniques (continuous wave, time and frequency resolved methods) he contributed to develop in collaboration with several international labs and industries. The NIRS methods are based on the principle that tissues are relatively transparent to the light in NIR range and that the main chromophores are represented by oxyhaemoglobin and deoxyhaemoglobin. Author of more than 120 peer reviewed publications. The main recent areas of interest are: 1) investigation of the frontal cortex haemodynamic changes upon different cognitive and motor stimuli by non invasive multi-channel functional NIRS; 2) understanding of the mechanism of brain/muscle fatigue during exercise. Editorial board member of the Journal of Near Infrared Spectroscopy, and Journal of Biomedical Optics. 

• Professor Takafumi Hamaoka, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
• Audio recording (mp3)

Takafumi is Professor and deputy director of Sport and Health Science at Ritsumeikan University. He has conducted a research regarding control of muscle oxidative metabolism using near-infrared spectroscopy and proton- and phosphorus-magnetic resonance spectroscopy with Professor Britton Chance in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Pennsylvania in 1990-1991. He has continued muscle research in the department of preventive medicine and public health, Tokyo Medical University in 1991-2002 and National Institute of Fitness and Sports in 2002-2010. He was a member of Editorial Board, Environmental Health Perspectives (NIH, USA) in 1997-2003. He is currently a fellow of American College of Sports Medicine and a member of Executive Board, Japanese Society of Physical Fitness and Sports Medicine. He has received a Research Award, Tokyo Metropolitan Government in 1991, a Best Poster Award, 2nd Congress of Asian Federation of Sports Medicine in 1996, a Young Investigators Award, 1st Congress of European College of Sports Science in 1996, a Best Paper Award, Japanese Society of Applied Physiology in 1999, and a Best Research Award, Japanese Society for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2004. His research expertise is sports medicine, environmental medicine, control of muscle oxidative metabolism, control of muscle hemodynamics, and muscle near-infrared spectroscopy. 

• Professor Chris Cooper, University of Essex, UK
• Audio recording (mp3)

Chris Cooper obtained a BSc in Biochemistry (Bristol, 1985) and a PhD in Biophysics (Guelph, Canada, 1989). From 1989-1992 he studied EPR spectroscopy at King’s College London. In 1992 he was awarded a Medical Research Council Fellowship at University College London to study mitochondrial energetics in vivo using a combination of magnetic resonance and near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). He moved to the University of Essex in 1995 when he received a Wellcome Trust Award in the area of nitric oxide interactions with mitochondria. He was awarded a personal chair in Biochemistry in 1999. His current research interests focus on oxygen transport and utilisation in biology and medicine.

His in vitro studies explore the free radical (nitric oxide, superoxide) reactivity of myoglobin, haemoglobin and mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase. His in vivo studies focus on the use of NIRS to measure oxygen utilisation non-invasively, with particular emphasis on measurements of cytochrome oxidase. He has been actively involved in the development of haem therapeutics, in particular the creation of non-toxic blood substitutes.

He sits on the Executive Committee of the British Biophysical Society, the International Advisory Panel of the Mitochondrial Physiology Society and the editorial panels of Essays in Biochemistry and Free Radical Research. 

• Professor Paul Beard, University College London, UK

Paul Beard obtained a BSc in Physics at UCL in 1987. Following a period at Marconi Underwater Systems Ltd developing passive fibre optic sonar arrays he returned to UCL and was awarded a PhD in photoacoustic spectroscopy in 1996. He is currently Professor of Biomedical Photoacoustics in the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering, UCL and holds an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship. His research interests lie in optical ultrasound detection, light transport and acoustic propagation modeling, quantitative photoacoustic image reconstruction, spectroscopic inversion methods and ultrasound metrology. 

• Professor Simon Cherry, University of California, USA

Simon R Cherry, PhD received his BSc(Hons) in Physics with Astronomy from Universiry College London in 1986 and a PhD in Medical Physics from the Institute of Cancer Research, University of London in 1989. After a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr Edward Hoffman at UCLA, he joined the faculty in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA in 1993. From 1998-2001 he was Associate Director of the UCLA Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging. In 2001, Dr Cherry joined UC Davis as a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging. Dr Cherry was Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis from 2007-2009.

Dr Cherry’s research interests center around in vivo molecular imaging systems. A focus of his research is the development of very high resolution position emission tomography (PET) systems for preclinical imaging, in particular the development of the microPET scanner that was subsequently widely adopted in academia and industry. Addtional interests include multi-modality imaging, especially the integration of PET with MRI, and optical molecular imaging techniques. Dr Cherry is a founding member of the Society of Molecular Imaging and a fellow of the IEEE, BMES and AIMBE. He serves on the Editorial Board of the journals Physics in Medicine and Biology and Molecular Imaging and Biology. In 2006, Dr Cherry was invited to give the Henry Wagner Distiguihsed Lectureship at the Society of Nuclear Medicine annual meeting and in 2007 Dr Cherry received the Academy of Molecular Imaging Distinguished Basic Scientist Award. Dr Cherry is the author of more than 190 peer-reviewed journal articles or book chapters in the field of biomedical imaging. He is also co-author of the 3^rd edition of the textbook “Physics in Nuclear Medicine”. 

• Dr Ilias Tachtsidis, University College London, UK

Ilias is a Wellcome Trust fellow based in the biomedical optics research laboratory (BORL) in medical physics and bioengineering in UCL.

His educational background is in Electronics Engineering and Medical Physics. Ilias joined BORL to study for his PhD in 2001 under the guidance of Prof. Dave Delpy. His main research interests are both in the development and use of optical techniques in medicine. Currently Ilias work is centred on the development of the next generation of brain tissue optical spectrometers and their clinical application in both adults and neonates. 

• Professor Kenneth Schenkman, University of Washington, USA

Kenneth A Schenkman, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology and Bioengineering (Adjunct) at the University of Washington. He is an attending critical care physician in the Pediatric Intensive Care Units at Seattle Children’s Hospital and at Harborview Medical Center, both in Seattle. After receiving his M.D. from Indiana University he completed a pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh where he also served as Chief Resident. He trained in pediatric critical care at Children’s Hospital in Seattle and received a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Washington. He has an active research program developing optical spectroscopic technologies for clinical assessment of cellular oxygenation and mitochondrial function.  

• Dr Topin Austin, University of Cambridge, UK

Topun Austin is a Consultant Neonatologist at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He graduated from University College London, and it was here that he undertook his postgraduate research training under the supervision of Professors John Wyatt and Jeremy Hebden. His main research interest is in Perinatal Brain Injury and in the development of multimodal monitoring and imaging systems to identify vulnerable infants at an early stage. He has had a long and successful collaboration with the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory at UCL; this has included working with the group in the development of a pioneering 3D optical imaging system to study regional blood volume and oxygenation from the neonatal brain. He is currently collaborating with the group in developing an integrated optical-EEG system to investigate neonatal brain function and seizure activity.

• Professor Babs Soller, University of Massachusetts, USA

Dr Babs Soller received her PhD in Physical Chemistry from Princeton University, where she studied the spectroscopy of transition metal ions. Dr Soller is currently Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Her lab is exploring the application of near infrared spectroscopy for the continuous, noninvasive measurement of muscle oxygen, pH and blood hematocrit. The lab is also actively involved in investigating the clinical application of NIRS for the monitoring and care of critically ill patients and application in monitoring the deconditioning of astronauts in space. Dr Soller recently founded Reflectance Medical Inc. to commercialize the NIRS hardware and software invented by her laboratory. Dr Soller serves as Reflectance Medical’s Chief Scientific Officer. 

• Dr Aparna Hoskote, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust & University College Lonodn, Institute of Child Health, UK

Dr Aparna Hoskote is a Consultant Paediatric Cardiac Intensivist responsible for the care of the patients on the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital since 2004. The Cardiac Intensive Care Unit is a quaternary referral centre for children with congenital heart disease before and after congenital heart surgery including heart and heart-lung transplantation, severe cardiac failure due to acquired causes, primary pulmonary hypertension, large airway disease as well as for infants and children with intractable respiratory or cardio-respiratory failure needing ECMO or bridge to heart transplantation on mechanical assist devices.

Dr Hoskote leads on a theme of neuromonitoring, neuroprotection and long-term outcome to improve service delivery and ultimate quality of life. She has established collaboration with well established research groups:- University College London, Medical Physics (Professor Clare Elwell) to study brain and tissue oxygenation by Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy (NIRS) on ECMO as well as multi-site NIRS and optical topography, The Department of Developmental Cognitive Neurosciences, ICH (Prof Vargha-Khadem) looking at hippocampal volumes and memory impairment in TGA and ECMO survivors, University of Leicester and National Perinatology Unit recruiting neonates with hypoxaemic respiratory failure to the multicentre RCT - Neonatal ECMO Study of Temperature (NEST) funded by the British Heart Foundation; and The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto in a multicentre RCT of hypothermia after cardiac arrest and follow-up neurodevelopmental outcome.

Dr Hoskote’s research focus is to establish measures to identify neurological impairment and neurodisability pre and post major cardiac surgery, to study the effect of neuroprotective interventions and outcome and to study cerebral haemodynamics with NIRS as an early marker of brain ischaemia.  

• Dr Turgut Durduran, The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Spain

Dr Turgut Durduran is an assistant professor at ICFO-The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain. He leads the "Medical Optics Group" which develops  optical clinical monitors and imagers for neurology and oncology. 

• Professor Elizabeth Hillman, Columbia University, USA
• Audio recording (mp3)

Elizabeth Hillman PhD is Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at Columbia University in the city of New York. She received her PhD in Medical Physics from University College London in 2002, working on the development of time-resolved optical tomography for neonatal brain imaging. Following her PhD Dr Hillman worked for a start-up company in Boston, MA, and then completed post-doctoral training and became junior faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School developing novel high-resolution optical methods for exposed brain imaging. In 2006 she moved to Columbia University to establish her own lab which specializes in using light to capture information from living tissues on length scales from microns to centimeters using techniques including two-photon microscopy, laminar optical tomography, dynamic contrast enhanced molecular imaging and hyperspectral imaging. A particular focus of her research is using these techniques to explore the relationship between neuronal activity and blood flow in the brain. Dr Hillman is an Associate Editor for Biomedical Optics Express, and a Topical Editor for Applied Optics. She is the recipient of NSF CAREER, Human Frontier Science Program and Wallace Coulter Foundation Early Career awards. She has authored 39 peer reviewed articles and over 53 scientific abstracts.  

• Professor Lihong Wang, University of Washington, USA
• Audio recording (mp3)

Lihong Wang earned his PhD degree at Rice University. He holds the Gene Beare Distinguished Professorship at Washington University. His textbook entitled Biomedical Optics won the Goodman Book Writing Award. He edited the first book on photoacoustic tomography. He has published >220 journal articles and delivered >250 invited talks. He is a fellow of the AIMBE, IEEE, OSA, and SPIE. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biomedical Optics. He chairs the annual conference on Photons plus Ultrasound, and chaired the 2010 Gordon Conference on Lasers in Medicine and Biology and the 2010 OSA Topical Meeting on Biomedical Optics. He is a chartered member on an NIH study section. He serves as the founding chairs of the scientific advisory boards for two companies commercializing photoacoustic tomography. He received FIRST and CAREER awards. He has received 26 research grants as PI with a budget of $28M. He invented or discovered dark-field confocal photoacoustic microscopy (PAM), optical-resolution PAM, photoacoustic Doppler sensing, photoacoustic reporter-gene imaging, microwave-induced thermoacoustic tomography, exact reconstruction algorithms for photoacoustic tomography, frequency-swept ultrasound-modulated optical tomography, Mueller-matrix optical coherence tomography, optical coherence computed tomography, and oblique-incidence reflectometry. His Monte Carlo model of photon transport in scattering media is used worldwide. 

• Professor Thomas Krucker, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research Inc. and the Scripps Research Institute, USA
• Audio recording (mp3)

Thomas Krucker joined the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in 2005 to head up the molecular imaging efforts. He was previously at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla (CA) where he remains an Adjunct Professor at the Molecular and Integrative Neurosciences Department. Dr Krucker obtained his PhD in Neuropharmacology from the University of Zürich in Switzerland. 

• Professor Vasilis Ntziachristos, Technische Universität München and Helmholtz Zentrum München, National Research Centre for Environment and Health, Germany

Vasilis Ntziachristos PhD is a Professor and Chair for Biological Imaging and the director of the Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging at the Technische Univestitat Munchen and the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen. Prior to this appointment he has been faculty at Harvard University and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He has received his masters and doctorate degrees from the Bioengineering Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Diploma on Electrical Engineering from theAristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. His main research interests involve the development of optical methodologies for probing physiological and molecular events in tissues using non-invasive methods. 

• Professor Paul French, Imperial College London, UK
• Audio recording (mp3)

Professor Paul French was awarded the BSc Degree in Physics in 1983 and the PhD degree (for work on femtosecond dye lasers) in 1987 from Imperial College London. In 1988 he was a visiting professor at the University of New Mexico working on femtosecond dye lasers and in 1989 he was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Imperial, where he joined the academic staff in 1994. From 1990 to 1991 he worked on ultrafast all optical switching in optical fibres at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ. He is currently a Professor of Physics at Imperial College London and is Head of the Photonics Group. His research has evolved from ultrafast dye and solid-state laser physics to biomedical optics. Today his group develops and applies multidimensional fluorescence imaging technology for molecular cell biology, drug discovery and clinical diagnosis with a strong emphasis on fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) using microscopy, endoscopy and tomography. Paul French is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, the European Physical Society and the Optical Society of America and holds a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. 

• Dr Heidrun Wabnitz, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Germany

Heidrun Wabnitz received her diploma in physics (1979) and PhD (1982) from the University of Jena, Germany. Her project was focused on the investigation of orientational relaxation of dye molecules in solution by methods of picosecond spectroscopy. Following a postgraduate fellowship at the University and at the Institute of Physics of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences in Minsk, she continued her work at University of Jena in the fields of picosecond spectroscopy of molecules and time-resolved laser scanning microscopy. In 1991 she joined the Department of Biomedical Optics of Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Berlin. Her research interests include propagation of short light pulses in biological tissues, optical mammography, and are currently focused on time-resolved near-infrared spectroscopy of the human brain. She is involved in instrumental and methodological developments as well as their application in clinical studies and leads related projects. 

• Professor Adam Liebert, Institute of Biocyberentics and Biomedical Engineering, Poland

Adam Liebert received his MSc in fine mechanics from Warsaw University of Technology and PhD in biomedical engineering from the Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In years 2001-2004 he worked at Physikalish-Technische Bundesanstalt in Berlin as a postdoctoral fellow on development of brain imaging technique based on time-resolved near infrared spectroscopy. Currently he is associated professor and head of the Department of Biophysical Measurements and Imaging of the Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering in Warsaw. His main area of interest is application of near infrared spectroscopy in tissue oxygenation assessment and development of brain perfusion evaluation methodology based on time-resolved measurement of diffusely reflected light during injection of optical contrast agent as well as detection of fluorescence of the exogeneous dye circulating in the tissue. He deals also with laser-doppler perfusion measurement and imaging. He developed novel methods of laser-doppler signal processing and tests potential applications of this technique. 

• Dr Daniel Elson, Imperial College London, UK

Dr Daniel Elson is a senior lecturer in surgical imaging in the Department of Surgery and Cancer and the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, Institute of Global Health Innovation and Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Imperial College London. He received his undergraduate degree and PhD in Physics at Imperial College in 1999 and 2003. Research interests are based around the development and application of photonics technology to multispectral and polarization resolved surgical imaging and sensing, endoscopy, and fluorescence lifetime imaging. Recent projects have involved the development of illumination and vision systems for endoscopy combining light sources such as LEDs and laser diodes with computer vision techniques for image mosaicing, stereo detection and simultaneous localisation and mapping. These devices are being applied in minimally invasive and flexible robotic assisted surgery systems for single incision and natural orifice translumenal surgery. 

• Dr Adrien Desjardins, University College London, UK

Adrien Desjardins will join the Faculty of the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering at University College London in early 2011. He received his PhD from the Harvard Biophysics Program and the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program in 2007. Currently, he?s a Senior Scientist at Philips Research, focused on developing novel optical sensors and miniature imaging systems to improve interventional procedures. Adrien grew up in Toronto, Canada, and received his bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics from the University of British Columbia in 2001. He did his doctoral work on several topics in optical coherence tomography, including angle-resolved optical coherence tomography and high-speed volumetric imaging of the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal systems, under the supervision of Brett Bouma and Gary Tearney. His doctoral work included a position at the MIT Spectroscopy Lab under the supervision of Michael Feld. At UCL, Adrien will develop a wide-ranging research program with a strong emphasis on translating medical physics from the laboratory to the clinic.