Biophotonics Imaging and Therapy: Advances, Applications, and Perspectives toward Translation and Clinics

A special issue of Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732). This special issue belongs to the section "Biophotonics and Biomedical Optics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 October 2022) | Viewed by 18031

Special Issue Editors

Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Interests: optical wavefront shaping; photoacoustic imaging; ultrasound-modulated optical tomography; optical molecular imaging; optical focusing and imaging through scattering media
Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou 510080, China
Interests: optical imaging; photoacoustic tomography; biomedical applications; dynamic metabolism
Center for Biomedical Optics and Photonics, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
Interests: biomedical optical imaging; phototherapy; nanobiophotonics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Light is almost an ideal mechanism to probe and treat biological tissues. It is safe, nonionizing, noncarcinogenic, and it interacts with tissue directly at molecular levels, allowing for functional, metabolic, and molecular imaging at very early stage of diseases. Moreover, light can be used for controlled therapy, activation, and manipulation. Although light experiences strong scattering at depths in tissue, which causes primary trade-off between spatial resolution and penetration depth, researchers in the field have proposed many approaches to tackle this challenge from different perspectives. In recent decades, exciting achievements have been accomplished in biophotonics, which has greatly advanced or even reshaped the landscape of biomedical imaging and therapy, enabling many applications that were otherwise impossible. Currently, some modalities have become the standard of care or have been clinically adopted, such as optical endoscopy, optical coherence tomography, confocal microscopy, fluorescence imaging, optical angiography, etc. A lot more, however, are still under translational or technical development, such as photoacoustic imaging, Raman spectroscopy, two/three-photon imaging, single pixel imaging, phase microscopy, tissue clearing, molecular imaging, photothermal therapy, photodynamic therapy, etc.

This Special Issue plans to focus on recent advancement and applications of optical imaging and therapy technologies toward translation and clinics. Fundamental research to tackle existing technical limitations and perspectives of future development is also welcome. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Microscopic and spectroscopic technologies and their applications
  • Molecular biotechnology and its applications of diseases
  • Optical imaging and tomography in vivo
  • Optical therapy and treatment
  • Laser ablation and applied laser medicine
  • Tissue clearing
  • Computation and artificial intelligence technologies used in biophotonics
  • Optical diagnostics in health and disease applications
  • Optical clinical studies and patient trials
  • Future development of biophotonics
  • Other research and studies involving human tissue or patients

Prof. Dr. Puxiang Lai
Prof. Dr. Liming Nie
Prof. Dr. Junle Qu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • biophotonics
  • optical imaging
  • optical tomography
  • optical microscopy
  • optical spectroscopy
  • optical therapy
  • optical treatment
  • laser ablation
  • molecular imaging
  • optical diagnostics

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 10057 KiB  
Article
Identifying Collector Channel Orifices In Vivo with Phase-Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography: A Preliminary Study
by Guangxu Li
Photonics 2022, 9(8), 593; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9080593 - 20 Aug 2022
Viewed by 1657
Abstract
Collector channels are openings located in the trabecular meshwork (TM) of the human eye that function as conduits, connecting the anterior chamber to the episcleral veins. Identifying the positions of collector channel orifices (CCOs) is essential for positioning implants in microinvasive canal-based glaucoma [...] Read more.
Collector channels are openings located in the trabecular meshwork (TM) of the human eye that function as conduits, connecting the anterior chamber to the episcleral veins. Identifying the positions of collector channel orifices (CCOs) is essential for positioning implants in microinvasive canal-based glaucoma surgery, which is still not possible in vivo currently. Considerable evidence indicates that aqueous outflow becomes more active near the CCOs. Because the TM movement regulates the aqueous outflow, identification of the TM motion signal has the potential to locate the CCOs. Phase-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PhS-OCT) is an effective tool for the instantaneous detection of TM motion in vivo with sensitivity at the nanometer scale. However, the downside of this method is that phase measurement is prone to mix noises that negatively distinguish between biomedical signals. The TM motion was considered initially to be set up by the cardiac pulse. In this paper, a signal quality index related to blood pressure monitoring was applied to assess the validity of the TM motion signal. Measurements were carried out on two pairs of healthy human eyes. Quantitative measurements of the TM motion signal region such as size and frequency were recorded as the judgment indicator for CCOs. These results demonstrate that the PhS-OCT is a valuable tool capable of revealing the aqueous outflow pathway in vivo, offering a novel alternative to optimize glaucoma surgery. Full article
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14 pages, 2805 KiB  
Article
Raman-Guided Bronchoscopy: Feasibility and Detection Depth Studies Using Ex Vivo Lung Tissues and SERS Nanoparticle Tags
by Zongyu Wu, Ziwen Wang, Haoqiang Xie, Yiming Wang, Haoqi He, Shuming Nie, Jian Ye and Li Lin
Photonics 2022, 9(6), 429; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9060429 - 17 Jun 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2690
Abstract
Image-guided and robotic bronchoscopy is currently under intense research and development for a broad range of clinical applications, especially for minimally invasive biopsy and surgery of peripheral pulmonary nodules or lesions that are frequently discovered by CT or MRI scans. Optical imaging and [...] Read more.
Image-guided and robotic bronchoscopy is currently under intense research and development for a broad range of clinical applications, especially for minimally invasive biopsy and surgery of peripheral pulmonary nodules or lesions that are frequently discovered by CT or MRI scans. Optical imaging and spectroscopic modalities at the near-infrared (NIR) window hold great promise for bronchoscopic navigation and guidance because of their high detection sensitivity and molecular/cellular specificity. However, light scattering and background interference are two major factors limiting the depth of tissue penetration of photons, and diseased lesions such as small tumors buried under the tissue surface often cannot be detected. Here we report the use of a miniaturized Raman device that is inserted into one of the bronchoscope channels for sensitive detection of “phantom” tumors using fresh pig lung tissues and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanoparticle tags. The ex vivo results demonstrate not only the feasibility of using Raman spectroscopy for endoscopic guidance, but also show that ultrabright SERS nanoparticles allow detection through a bronchial wall of 0.85 mm in thickness and a 5 mm-thick layer of lung tissue (approaching the fourth-generation airway). This work highlights the prospects and potential of Raman-guided bronchoscopy for minimally invasive imaging and detection of lung lesions. Full article
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13 pages, 3015 KiB  
Article
Endoscopic OCT Angiography Using Clinical Proximal-End Scanning Catheters
by Lin Yao, Yuan Zhou, Kaiyuan Liu, Xiaoting Yin, Xiaofeng Deng, Zhihua Ding and Peng Li
Photonics 2022, 9(5), 329; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9050329 - 10 May 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2076
Abstract
Endoscopic optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a promising modality to inspect the microvasculature of inner organs in the early-stage tumor diagnosis. However, an endoscopic clinical proximal-end scanning catheter has limited flow imaging capability due to the nonuniform rotational distortion (NURD) and physiological [...] Read more.
Endoscopic optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a promising modality to inspect the microvasculature of inner organs in the early-stage tumor diagnosis. However, an endoscopic clinical proximal-end scanning catheter has limited flow imaging capability due to the nonuniform rotational distortion (NURD) and physiological motion. In this study, a combined local and global (CLG) optical flow algorithm was used to estimate the motion vectors caused by NURD and physiological motion. The motion vectors were used to bicubic-interpolation-resample the OCT structure to ensure that the circumferential pixels were equally spaced in the space domain. Then, angiograms were computed based on the statistical relation between inverse SNR (iSNR) and amplitude decorrelation (IDa), termed as IDa-OCTA. Finally, the ability of this technique for endoscopic OCTA imaging was demonstrated by flow phantom experiments and human nailfold capillary imaging. Full article
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12 pages, 3327 KiB  
Article
Ultracompact Deep Neural Network for Ultrafast Optical Property Extraction in Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI)
by Bowen Song, Wenchao Jia, Yanyu Zhao, Hongshi Huang and Yubo Fan
Photonics 2022, 9(5), 327; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9050327 - 10 May 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2058
Abstract
Spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) is a powerful, label-free imaging technique capable of the wide-field quantitative mapping of tissue optical properties and, subsequently, chromophore concentrations. While SFDI hardware acquisition methods have advanced towards video-rate, the inverse problem (i.e., the mapping of acquired diffuse [...] Read more.
Spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) is a powerful, label-free imaging technique capable of the wide-field quantitative mapping of tissue optical properties and, subsequently, chromophore concentrations. While SFDI hardware acquisition methods have advanced towards video-rate, the inverse problem (i.e., the mapping of acquired diffuse reflectance to optical properties) has remained a bottleneck for real-time data processing and visualization. Deep learning methods are adept at fitting nonlinear patterns, and may be ideal for rapidly solving the SFDI inverse problem. While current deep neural networks (DNN) are growing increasingly larger and more complex (e.g., with millions of parameters or more), our study shows that it can also be beneficial to move in the other direction, i.e., make DNNs that are smaller and simpler. Here, we propose an ultracompact, two-layer, fully connected DNN structure (each layer with four and two neurons, respectively) for ultrafast optical property extractions, which is 30×–600× faster than current methods with a similar or improved accuracy, allowing for an inversion time of 5.5 ms for 696 × 520 pixels. We further demonstrated the proposed inverse model in numerical simulations, and comprehensive phantom characterization, as well as offering in vivo measurements of dynamic physiological processes. We further demonstrated that the computation time could achieve another 200× improvement with a GPU device. This deep learning structure will help to enable fast and accurate real-time SFDI measurements, which are crucial for pre-clinical, clinical, and industrial applications. Full article
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13 pages, 1995 KiB  
Article
sCMOS Noise-Corrected Superresolution Reconstruction Algorithm for Structured Illumination Microscopy
by Bo Zhou, Xiaoshuai Huang, Junchao Fan and Liangyi Chen
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 172; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9030172 - 10 Mar 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2028
Abstract
Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) is widely applied due to its high temporal and spatial resolution imaging ability. sCMOS cameras are often used in SIM due to their superior sensitivity, resolution, field of view, and frame rates. However, the unique single-pixel-dependent readout noise of [...] Read more.
Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) is widely applied due to its high temporal and spatial resolution imaging ability. sCMOS cameras are often used in SIM due to their superior sensitivity, resolution, field of view, and frame rates. However, the unique single-pixel-dependent readout noise of sCMOS cameras may lead to SIM reconstruction artefacts and affect the accuracy of subsequent statistical analysis. We first established a nonuniform sCMOS noise model to address this issue, which incorporates the single-pixel-dependent offset, gain, and variance based on the SIM imaging process. The simulation indicates that the sCMOS pixel-dependent readout noise causes artefacts in the reconstructed SIM superresolution (SR) image. Thus, we propose a novel sCMOS noise-corrected SIM reconstruction algorithm derived from the imaging model, which can effectively suppress the sCMOS noise-related reconstruction artefacts and improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Full article
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Review

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19 pages, 3677 KiB  
Review
Blood Cell Analysis: From Traditional Methods to Super-Resolution Microscopy
by Zexu Tian, Yongchang Wei, Yalan Yu, Fuling Zhou and Zhen-Li Huang
Photonics 2022, 9(4), 261; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9040261 - 14 Apr 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2812
Abstract
Blood cell analysis is essential for the diagnosis and identification of hematological malignancies. The use of digital microscopy systems has been extended in clinical laboratories. Super-resolution microscopy (SRM) has attracted wide attention in the medical field due to its nanoscale spatial resolution and [...] Read more.
Blood cell analysis is essential for the diagnosis and identification of hematological malignancies. The use of digital microscopy systems has been extended in clinical laboratories. Super-resolution microscopy (SRM) has attracted wide attention in the medical field due to its nanoscale spatial resolution and high sensitivity. It is considered to be a potential method of blood cell analysis that may have more advantages than traditional approaches such as conventional optical microscopy and hematology analyzers in certain examination projects. In this review, we firstly summarize several common blood cell analysis technologies in the clinic, and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of these technologies. Then, we focus on the basic principles and characteristics of three representative SRM techniques, as well as the latest advances in these techniques for blood cell analysis. Finally, we discuss the developmental trend and possible research directions of SRM, and provide some discussions on further development of technologies for blood cell analysis. Full article
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18 pages, 40598 KiB  
Review
A Review of Raman-Based Technologies for Bacterial Identification and Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing
by Weifeng Zhang, Shipei He, Weili Hong and Pu Wang
Photonics 2022, 9(3), 133; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9030133 - 25 Feb 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3606
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global medical threat that seriously endangers human health. Rapid bacterial identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) are key interventions to combat the spread and emergence of AMR. Although current clinical bacterial identification and AST provide comprehensive information, they [...] Read more.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global medical threat that seriously endangers human health. Rapid bacterial identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) are key interventions to combat the spread and emergence of AMR. Although current clinical bacterial identification and AST provide comprehensive information, they are labor-intensive, complex, inaccurate, and slow (requiring several days, depending on the growth of pathogenic bacteria). Recently, Raman-based identification and AST technologies have played an increasingly important role in fighting AMR. This review summarizes major Raman-based techniques for bacterial identification and AST, including spontaneous Raman scattering, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), and coherent Raman scattering (CRS) imaging. Then, we discuss recent developments in rapid identification and AST methods based on Raman technology. Finally, we highlight the major challenges and potential future efforts to improve clinical outcomes through rapid bacterial identification and AST. Full article
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