The Project
Optical microscopy constitutes one of the most fundamental paradigms in biological and medical imaging. However, significant challenges remain in regard to the application of optical microscopy to in vivo interrogations. First, the diffusing nature of light propagation in tissue due to random variations of the refractive index, limits in vivo microscopy to superficial depths; within only a few mean free paths (<1mm). Second the invasive nature of fluorescent proteins and probes, allows monitoring of only 1-5 events by spectrally multiplexing different fluorochromes; i.e. performance that is highly incompatible with the targets of functional genomics and proteomics.
The new optical imaging ability delivered in DynAMic will be applied to a first target application of ophthalmic imaging, also used as a window to the brain and nervous disease detection, defining the next generation ophthalmology and neurology sensing of devastating diseases, disrupting the modus operandi of retinal and neuronal imaging without disturbing the modus agendi of the end users.
Project Goals
The long term vision and ambition of DynAMic is to revolutionize microscopic imaging by breaking i) the depth-to-resolution ratio and ii) the limited number of labels visualized, offering non-invasive, real time, high resolution, multiparametric in vivo imaging, across length scales, deep in biological complex media.
DynAMic proposes a radically new concept for optical imaging of tissue based on:
- Developing real-time wavefront-shaping adaptive optics for making the performance of any optical system ideal and for the first time in coherent Raman microscopy.
- Reaching tenfold deeper in tissue than conventional optical microscopy by compensating for the refractive index variations using phase and polarization retrieval for inversing light diffusion.
- Utilizing advance image formation to improve the sensitivity and utilization of stimulated Raman scattering for multi-parametric label-free contrast that radically expands at least tenfold the number of labels concurrently retrieved from living systems, linking optical observation to functional proteomic requirements.
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Meet Our Team
DynAMic comprises a consortium of high interdisciplinarity, covering the fields of optics and photonics (FORTH-IESL), theoretical and experimental physics, mathematics (CNRS), electronics, optronics and mechatronics, engineering and production technology (Rayfos, Imagine Optic), life sciences, biology, biomedicine and medicine (EKUT, FORTH-IMBB) and imaging science and technology (TUM, USTAN). The consortium has unique expertise and interdisciplinarity with proven and demonstrated record of participation and management of European and National research grants. The relevance of the expertise within DynAMic is illustrated by the close collaboration and synergy between the partners.
