Applications of photonics to the life sciences and medicine

Science and technology projects of the NSF Center for Biophotonics are enumerated, such as saturated structured illumination microscopes to achieve up to 5/spl times/ diffraction-limited resolution imaging, X-ray diffraction microscopy for imaging single biomolecules, phytochromes engineered for tailored wavelength optical labels, in vivo bioluminescence imaging of mouse models to develop protease assays, Raman spectroscopy and coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopic imaging assays for single molecule detection, laser-activated shaped memory polymer intracerebral catheter tools, PDT applied to epileptogenesis site ablation, hyperspectral imaging and diagnosis of cancer at the single cellular level, as well as numerous other applications or photonics technologies.