St Andrews University has been awarded a £5.6m grant to develop new light technologies that are able to see into the human body in more depth and detail.
The grant focuses on the science of photonics - the generation and application of light in its many forms -and explores a range of concepts of shaping or ’structuring’ light at the micro and nanoscales.
Named “Challenging the Limits of Photonics: Structured Light”, the project will look at imaging through scattering media, especially biological tissue and skin.
Researchers will also aim to discover how high resolution imaging can be achieved at long distances.
This will be done by generating complicated laser beam structures using full control over the amplitude, phase and polarisation and applying these to novel sources.
The hope is that new forms of sensing will be possible, whereby the ability of light to interrogate extremely small volumes of tissue or biofluids can be used to find new methods for disease detection and prevention.
Professor Dholakia said: “Our new understanding and applications of light can also impact in other areas of biology and medicine such as the emergent field of optogenetics.
“Optogenetics is the Science of controlling events in targeted cells using light alone, which has immense promise in relation to neuroscience, e.g. to understand conditions such as epilepsy and control Alzheimer’s disease.”
