iOptics Seminar on Nanoscale Imaging and Sensing of Live Cells

Please join us for a special summer seminar on Wednesday 6th July at 3:00 PM in 3269 Beckman Institute. Prof. Adam Wax, Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Duke University, is presenting on "Nanoscale Imaging and Sensing of Live Cells".

Speaker: Prof. Adam Wax

Topic: Nanoscale Imaging and Sensing of Live Cells

Date: Wednesday, 6th July 2016

Time: 3.00 PM - 4.00 PM

Location: 3269 Beckman Institute

Sponsors: OSA Student Chapter, SPIE Student Chapter, IEEE Photonics

Event type: Seminar

Abstract: The study of intact, living cells and tissues using non-invasive optical spectroscopic methods offers the opportunity to assess structure and function in a way that is not possible with traditional methods. We have developed quantitative phase imaging methods which can image changes due to disease and dysfunction at the nanoscale. Recent results will be presented showing how quantitative phase images reveal nanoscale changes in red blood cells which can detect disease as well show signs of dysfunction due to aging. Our group has also developed plasmonic gold nanoparticles as imaging labels which may be incorporated into this imaging approach for molecular contrast. We will present our scheme for optimizing sensing of plasmonic labels within quantitative phase imaging and demonstrate how this molecular contrast can aid in detecting disease at the cellular level. Finally, we will present new results showing how nanoscale changes can reveal cell mechanical properties for biophysical cell studies as well as understanding the origin of disease.

Speaker Biography: Prof. Adam Wax received dual B.S. degrees in 1993, one in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY and one in physics from the State University of New York at Albany, and the Ph.D. degree in physics from Duke University, Durham, NC in 1999. He joined the George R. Harrison Spectroscopy Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as a postdoctoral fellow of the National Institutes of Health immediately after his doctorate. In 2002, Dr. Wax joined the faculty of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University where he currently is professor and Director of Graduate Studies. In 2006, Dr. Wax founded Oncoscope, Inc. to commercialize early cancer detection technology developed in his laboratory. In 2010, he was named as Fellow of the Optical Society of America and SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. In 2014, he was named a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. His research interests are in the use of light scattering and interferometry to probe the biophysical properties of cells for both diagnosis of disease and fundamental cell biology studies.

Our activities are funded by OSA and SPIE. If you are already a member of these organizations, please take some time to fill in the following spreadsheet with your member ID number number : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap78yQhjeS8cdDV3NXdzemdqZjBncHVjRWVvWVgtV1E&usp=sharing.