Papers Published

1. Yang, C. and Rao, K.D. and Choma, M. and Yazdanfar, S. and Rollins, A.M. and Izatt, J.A., Molecular contrast in optical coherence tomography using a pump-probe technique and an optical switch suppression technique, Proc. SPIE - Int. Soc. Opt. Eng. (USA), vol. 5140 no. 1 (2003), pp. 95 - 100 [12.501007] .
   (last updated on 2007/04/13)

   Abstract:
   We describe two novel technique for contrast enhancement in optical coherence tomography (OCT) which enables molecular specific imaging. The first, a pump-probe technique, is employed in which a pulsed pump laser is tuned to ground-state absorption in a molecule of interest. The location of the target molecule population is derived from the resulting transient absorption of OCT sample arm light acting as probe light. Preliminary results exhibiting contrast enhancement in cross-sectional OCT images using methylene blue dye are presented. The second method is an optical switch suppression technique based on the use of a transmembrane protein called bacteriorhodopsin. Initial experiments indicate that biochemical optical switches, such as bacteriorhodopsin, are excellent contrast agent candidates for molecular contrast OCT

   Keywords:
   biochemistry;biomedical optical imaging;dyes;image enhancement;medical image processing;molecular biophysics;optical pumping;optical switches;optical tomography;proteins;