David Sampson plenary presentation: Addressing Biophotonics Challenges: Deep Penetration with Needles and Alternate Contrast with Micro-elastography

In this plenary session, David Sampson of University of Western Australia describes efforts to overcome the two limitations known all too well by researchers in the field of biomedical optics: constrained depth penetration through tissue, and insufficient contrast to discern structures. His approach focuses on building and using "microscopes-in-a-needle." These ultrasmall, high-sensitivity microscopes are manipulated inside of tissue to get 3D reconstruction images via optical coherence tomography (OCT).

The needle provides a minimally invasive method to overcome the obstacle of depth penetration. However, a basic physiological problem remains, in achieving enough contrast to distinguish between benign and malignant solid tissue.

Sampson is director of the Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis -- the University of Western Australia's micro-imaging core facility, and a node of the Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility and the (Australian) National Imaging Facility. He heads the Optical+Biomedical Engineering Laboratory in the School of Electrical, Electronic & Computer Engineering.

He is an editorial board member of SPIE's Journal of Biomedical Optics. He is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering and for IEEE Photonics Journal. Sampson is a Fellow of the OSA and SPIE.