This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 8329, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction, and the Conference Committee listing

Genetically encoded biosensors based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) enables visualization of signaling events in live cells with high spatiotemporal resolution. We have used FRET to assess temporal and spatial characteristics for signaling molecules, including tyrosine kinases Src and FAK, small GTPase Rac, calcium, and a membrane-bound matrix metalloproteinase MT1-MMP. Activations of Src and Rac by platelet derived growth factor (PDGF) led to distinct subcellular patterns during cell migration on micropatterned surface, and these two enzymes interact with each other to form a feedback loop with differential regulations at different subcellular locations. We have developed FRET biosensors to monitor FAK activities at rafts vs. non-raft regions of plasma membrane in live cells. In response to cell adhesion on matrix proteins or stimulation by PDGF, the raft-targeting FAK biosensor showed a stronger FRET response than that at non-rafts. The FAK activation at rafts induced by PDGF is mediated by Src. In contrast, the FAK activation at rafts induced by adhesion is independent of Src activity, but rather is essential for Src activation. Thus, Src is upstream to FAK in response to chemical stimulation (PDGF), but FAK is upstream to Src in response to mechanical stimulation (adhesion). A novel biosensor has been developed to dynamically visualize the activity of membrane type-1-matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP), which proteolytically remodels the extracellular matrix. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) directed active MT1-MMP to the leading edge of migrating live cancer cells with local accumulation of EGF receptor via a process dependent on an intact cytoskeletal network. In summary, FRET-based biosensors enable the elucidation of molecular processes and hierarchies underlying spatiotemporal regulation of biological and pathological processes, thus advancing our knowledge on how cells perceive mechanical/chemical cues in space and time to coordinate molecular/cellular functions.

Objective To assess the Taikonaut's space radiation risk organ, doses have been calculated using a male voxel model. Methods A male voxel model based on MRI was built. The proton spectra were calculated by AP-8 with SPENVIS and Badhwar's GCR model. The general 3 D Monte Carlo particle and heavy ion transport code GEANT4 was used to calculate the average doses for some organs and tissues. Results After 1 g/cm² shielding shell, the absorbed dose rate of skin is 0.6 mGy/d and effective dose rate is estimated to be 2.3 mSv/d during the SZ-5/6/7 mission. The total effective dosesof the taikonauts are estimated to be around 2.0 mSv during the SZ-5 mission, 10.9mSv during the SZ-6 mission and 6.5 mSv during the SZ-7 mission separately. Conclusion The calculated skin doses are closed to the values measured by TLDs in SZ-5/6/7, and within the range of 0.2~0.6mSv published by USA and Russia.

In this paper, the imaging technology of digital image plane holography to identify the Chinese herbal medicine is studied. The optical experiment system of digital image plane holography which is the special case of pre-magnification digital holography was built. In the record system, one is an object light by using plane waves which illuminates the object, and the other one is recording hologram by using spherical light wave as reference light. There is a Micro objective lens behind the object. The second phase factor which caus ed by the Micro objective lens can be eliminated by choosing the proper position of the reference point source when digital image plane holography is recorded by spherical light. In this experiment, we use the Lygodium cells and Onion cells as the object. The experiment results with Lygodium cells and Onion cells show that digital image plane holography avoid the process of finding recording distance by using auto-focusing approach, and the phase information of the object can be reconstructed more accurately. The digital image plane holography is applied to the microscopic imaging of cells more effectively, and it is suit to apply for the identify of Chinese Herbal Medicine. And it promotes the application of digital holographic in practice.

This paper was presented at the SPIE conference indicated above and has been withdrawn from publication at the request of the authors.

Photonics is a science which research light quantum as the carrier for energy and information. Photonic technology in the meridian and acupoints research has shown the unique advantages, by which the microcosmic material basis and macroscopic phenomena research can be integrated to interpret the occurrence of propagated sensation along meridian and its underling mechanism. This paper focuses on the investigation on heat sensing action along the meridian by photonic technology. The four items of heat sensing action were discussed, i.e. thermo-effects, heat sensing capability, laser induced heat effect, underling mechanism on heat sensing effect along the meridian. The authors point out that photonic technology, e.g. photonic imaging, and infrared spectrum analysis, biological photons detection and laser Doppler application, can achieve purpose of in vivo, dynamic, and multiple comparable studies. Thereby the effect of heat sensing along meridian can be detected and illustrated by the use of natural science. Heat information can be investigated to analyze the relationship between zang-fu organs, meridians, and the functional characteristics of the meridian. Hence, the effect of heat sensing along the meridian is the break point of the research of photonics in the meridian which is beneficial to further study the meridian optics.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a diagnostic method which is non-invasive and non-ionizing irradiative to the human body. It not only suits structural, but also functional imaging. The NMR technique develops rapidly in its application in life science, which has become the hotspot in recent years. Menopausal panic disorder (MPD) is a typical psychosomatic disease during climacteric period, which may affect physical and mental health. Looking for a convenient, effective, and safe method, which is free of toxic-side effects to control the disease, is a modern medical issue. Based on reviewing the etiology and pathogenesis of MPD according to dual traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and western medicine, further analyzed the advantages and principles for selecting acupoint prescription by tonifying kidney and benefiting marrow therapy for acupoint catgut-embedding to this disease. The application of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMRS) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technologies in mechanism research on acupoint catgut embedding for the treatment of MPD was discussed. It's pointed out that this intervention method is safe and effective to treat MPD. Breakthrough will be achieved from the research of the selection of acupoint prescription and therapeutic mechanism of acupoint catgut embedding for the treatment of menopausal panic disorder by utilizing the Functional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Metabonomics technologies.

Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs) are biochemical end-products of non-enzymatic glycation and are formed irreversibly in human serum and skin tissue. AGEs are thought to play an important role in the pathogenesis of diabetes and corresponding complications. All conventional methods for measuring AGEs must take sampling and measure in vitro. These methods are invasive and have the problem of relatively time-consuming. AGEs have fluorescent characteristics. Skin AGEs can be assessed noninvasively by collecting the fluorescence emitted from skin tissue when excited with proper light. However, skin tissue has absorption and scattering effects on fluorescence of AGEs, it is not reliable to evaluate the accumulation of AGEs according the emitted fluorescence but not considering optical properties of skin tissue. In this study, a portable system for detecting AGEs fluorescence and skin reflectance spectrum simultaneously has been developed. The system mainly consists of an ultraviolet light source, a broadband light source, a trifurcated fiber-optic probe, and a compact charge coupled device (CCD) spectrometer. The fiber-optic probe consists of 36 optical fibers which are connected to the ultraviolet light source, 6 optical fibers connected to the broadband light source, and a core fiber connected to the CCD spectrometer. Demonstrative test measurements with the system on skin tissue of 40 healthy subjects have been performed. Using parameters that are calculated from skin reflectance spectrum, the distortion effects caused by skin absorption and scattering can be eliminated, and the integral intensity of corrected fluorescence has a strong correlation with the accumulation of AGEs. The system looks very promising for both laboratory and clinical applications to monitor AGEs related diseases, especially for chronic diabetes and complications.

A portable near-infrared photoacoustic scanning imaging system has been developed with a single pulsed laser diode, which was integrated with an optical lens system to straightforward boost the laser energy density for photoacoustic generation. The 905 nm laser diode provides a maximum energy output of 14 μJ within 100 ns pulse duration, and the pulse repetition frequency rate is 0.8 KHz. As a possible alternative light source, the preliminary 2D photoacoustic results primely correspond with the test phantoms of umbonate extravasated gore and knotted blood vessel network. The photoacoustic SNR can reach 20.6±1.2 dB while signal averaging reduces to 128 pulses from thousands to tens of thousands times, and the signal acquisition time accelerates to less than 0.2 s in each A-scan, especially the volume of the total radiation source is only 10 × 3 × 3 cm³. It demonstrated that the pulsed semiconductor laser could be a candidate of photoacoustic equipment for daily clinical application.

CO₂ laser and He-Ne laser were used to irradiate the biologically suspended cell respectively, i.e. industrial saccharomyces cerevisiae AS Sacchromyce2.1189. Experimental results show that the increase of CO₂ laser temperature was fast, and there was a clear lethal effect. The temperature of He-Ne laser was almost not up, and there was no lethal effect, but mainly the stimulating effect. In this paper, the lethal effect and the stimulating effect of experimental results were analyzed by fractal theory and quantum theory. The theoretical analysis was consistent with the experimental results.

The microscopic mechanism on rheology and harmful effects of low level laser irradiation of blood were analyzed by Quantum theory. The analyzed results showed that laser may resolve fibrin clot, then the property of rheology of blood is improved; and some bonds of the cholesterol in blood were fractured by low level laser (abbreviate LLL) , hence the ratio of membrane cholesterol/membrane phosp-hatide of red cell were reduced, then blood circulation can be improved. So low level laser irradiated blood possess the action of mending rheology of blood. But our analyses point out that LLL may cut off some bonds of living biomolecule (e.g. Protein molecule) yet, then some normal protein may emerged denaturation, so normal cells in blood may be destroyed, namely low level laser irradiation can produce the harmful effects on blood. This paper criticized the viewpoint intravascular low level laser irradiation (abbreviate ILLLI) have not action.

Methylase is vital for a large number of biological reactions. Here we developed a new method for DNA methylase activity analysis. In this paper, a DNA hairpin probe with a sequence of 5'-GATC-3' in the stem region was designed. The 5'-GATC-3' sequence was targeted by Dam MTase and was methylated. Subsequently, restriction enzyme Dpnl recognized the site and cut it. Then the haipin probe was transformed into three single stranded DNA. This enzymatic process can be monitored by the change of SYBR green I fluorescence. The current label free assay is an useful tool for DNA methylase activity analysis due to its simplicity, speedability, and low cost.

Recently, our group showed that one can detect specific oligonucleotides at low femtomolar levels with the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) biobarcode approach based on tris-(2, 2'-bipyridyl) ruthenium (TBR)-labeled cysteamine. It would be a significant advance to use the cysteamine assisted ECL biobarcode assay to detect protein targets in addition to DNA targets. Taking advantage of sandwich binding of two affinity aptamers for increased specificity, TBR-cysteamine as biobarcode for signal amplification and magnetic beads based ECL technology for rapid detection, a promising assay for thrombin quantification is developed. The sandwich complex could be selectively captured by micromagnetic particles and then quantified by ECL signals. Current cysteamine-Gold nanoparticle (GNP) conjugates based ECL biobarcode assay is expected to become a powerful tool for protein analysis.

A method for noninvasive viscoelasticity detection of biological tissues using phase-resolved photoacoustic measurement is presented. We deduced the process of photoacoustic effect on the basis of thermal viscoelasticity theory, and established the relationship between the photoacoustic phase delay and the viscosity-elasticity ratio for soft solids. Agar phantoms with different densities and different absorption coefficients were used to verify the dependence of photoacoustic phase-resolved viscoelasticity measurement. Moreover, viscoelasticity detection of tissues was obtained with a photoacoustic point scanning system. The photoacoustic phase-resolved method provides a basis for viscoelasticity detection, which can potentially be used for detection of viscoelastic properties and lesions of biological tissues.

It was found that core/shell quantum dots coupled with the structure of biological molecules, appear to accept the role of light to stimulate the part (donor),and then received no radiation in the form of energy to pass to the structure of some other molecules(acceptor), which appeared for the donor fluorescence quenching and the fluorescence activated receptor. It should be noted that in quantum dots coupled with molecular structure of biologcal energy transfer for its application in the biologcal sciences is very important. But its mechanism of energy transfer theory analysis is not enough. Now we generally agreed that quantum dots coupled with biologcal molecules in the structure of the transferring mechanism is the dipole-dipole interaction mechanism (Forster theory). However, Forster dipole-dipole interaction theory generally applies to weak coupling and incoherent system. As quantum dots coupled with the molecular structure of biologcal is complex, coupling between the system elements may be stronger coupled and has a coherence. Therefore, Forster dipole-dipole interaction theory does not apply. We believe that should be applied Redfield coherent exciton-dipole interactions or strong interactions between the exciton theory. If biomolecules coupled quantum dot structure with a high degree of coherence and the existence of anharmonic interactions, in this case perhaps the energy of this system will soliton transmission mechanism. This is only our speculation.

In this paper, according to Frohlich biological Bose condensation theory, the living biological system is a very high coherence system, so we believe that the system is a set of some same electric dipole oscillator; and we take this system as double energy level, the two energy level model is simple and effective model for mentioned system above. On the basis of the two energy level model of the biomolecule, the micromechananism of fluorescence effects on account of laser acting on living biomolecule system was analyzed by quantum theory(i.e. the dressed stats of biomolecule in laser field was adopted under dipole approximation). In this paper, some results of corresponding experiment were explained by means of the dressed state theory and the dipole-dipole interactions theory (Foster theory). Our theory can explain some results of corresponding experiments.

Second-harmonic generation (SHG) is proved to be a high spatial resolution, large penetration depth and non-photobleaching method. In our study, SHG method was used to investigate the normal and cancerous thyroid tissue. For SHG imaging performance, system parameters were adjusted for high-contrast images acquisition. Each x-y image was recorded in pseudo-color, which matches the wavelength range in the visible spectrum. The acquisition time for a 512×512-pixels image was 1.57 sec; each acquired image was averaged four frames to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Our results indicated that collagen presence as determined by counting the ratio of the SHG pixels over the whole pixels for normal and cancerous thyroid tissues were 0.48±0.05, 0.33±0.06 respectively. In addition, to quantitatively assess collagen-related changes, we employed GLCM texture analysis to the SHG images. Corresponding results showed that the correlation both fell off with distance in normal and cancerous group. Calculated value of Corr₅₀ (the distance where the correlation crossed 50% of the initial correlation) indicated significant difference. This study demonstrates that SHG method can be used as a complementary tool in thyroid histopathology.

An implementation system of three-dimensional endoscopic photoacoustic imaging is presented. The developed endoscopic photoacoustic detector integrates a multielement linear transducer array, a reflective device, a Plexiglass tube and ultrasonic coupling medium. To match with the acoustic impendence of Plexiglass tube, a glycerin solution with 45% volume percentage was used as the ultrasonic coupling medium. This ultrasonic coupling medium can decrease photoacoustic pressure transmission loss during the progress of photoacoustic signal propagation. The capability of the system for three-dimensional imaging was verified with chicken breast tissue. The experimental results demonstrate the multielement-based endoscopic photoacoustic imaging system with inside-out laser exciting mode has the ability of reconstructing three-dimensional images of biology tissue.

In this study, we report the Ag nanoparticles aggregated in the process of the labeling that use the crystal violet as the Raman probe. After this process- immune nanoparticles aggregate with high SERS sensitivity and biological specificity are created. We track and characterize the preparation by employing UV-Vi absorption spectra, Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and SERS spectra. With the increase of crystal violet, the aggregate of the Ag nanoparticles also increase, while the intensity of absorption peaks decrease. When the concentration of crystal violet reaches 1.0×10^-4 mol/L, new peaks were found in the long wavelengths, and with the increase of the crystal violet, the intensity of the new peaks increase as well. We observe from the TEM, that with the increase of crystal violet, the aggregation degree of the Ag nanoparticles also increase and then they unite together. The SERS activity of the aggregates was directly related to the aggregation degree. Detecting the SERS activity of Ag NPs aggregates labeled with different amount of crystal violet, we found that with the increase of the crystal violet, the SERS signals of NPs aggregates enhanced. However, when the amount of crystal violet exceeded 25μL in 1mL colloidal silver, the Ag NPs occurred agglomeration and thereafter the next preparation of immune-label aggregates was hindered. Whereas, the probe labelled with 12μL crystal violet exhibited a better stability, stronger SERS activity and higher biological specificity, and it may accomplish a highly efficient SERS-based immunoassay. This immune probe was applied for detecting the expression of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) in the colon cancer tissue slice. Results show that appropriate immune aggregates labelled with optimum quantity of crystal violet present high stability, strong SERS activity and good immune specificity, which are expected to be applied in the analysis of the protein expression in the tissue section and promising for developing into a clinical tool for diagnosis.

Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) technology has already made great progress in bio-molecule detection. It can make the target molecules strongly absorbed onto the surface of metal nanoparticles, and then the Raman signal of its own has been greatly enhanced through physical and chemical enhancement mechanisms. We report the SERS spectra of creatinine in silver colloid, and study the silver colloid enhanced effects on the Raman scattering of creatinine. We can also find that creatinine concentration is linearly related to its SERS peak intensity and the detection limit of creatinine silver sol is found to be 10 mg/dl. In conclusion, we can observe that the silver colloid has very good enhanced effects for the creatinine. The potential applications of SERS in quantitative measurement of the creatinine liquor are demonstrated. The result shows that the SERS approach would provide a unique and fast test method for creatinine detection.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a vibrational spectroscopic technique that is capable of probing the biomolecular changes associated with diseased transformation. The objective of our study was to explore gold nanoparticle based SERS to obtain blood serum biochemical information for non-invasive colorectal cancer detection. SERS measurements were performed on two groups of blood serum samples: one group from patients (n = 38) with pathologically confirmed colorectal cancer and the other group from healthy volunteers (control subjects, n = 45). Tentative assignments of the Raman bands in the measured SERS spectra suggested interesting cancer specific biomolecular changes, including an increase in the relative amounts of nucleic acid, a decrease in the percentage of saccharide and proteins contents in the blood serum of colorectal cancer patients as compared to that of healthy subjects. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the measured SERS spectra separated the spectral features of the two groups into two distinct clusters with little overlaps. Linear discriminate analysis (LDA) based on the PCA generated features differentiated the nasopharyngeal cancer SERS spectra from normal SERS spectra with high sensitivity (97.4%) and specificity (100%). The results from this exploratory study demonstrated that gold nanoparticle based SERS serum analysis combined with PCA-LDA has tremendous potential for the non-invasive detection of colorectal cancers.

Mounting evidence describes a more complex progress of macrophage activation during photodynamic therapy (PDT), which performing distinct immunological functions and different physiologies on surrounding cells and tissues. Macrophage-targeted PDT has been applied in the selective killing of cells involved in inflammation and tumor. We have previously shown that PDT-mediated tumor cells apoptosis can induce a higher level immune response than necrosis, and enhance the macrophage activation. However, the molecular mechanism of macrophage activation during PDT-induced apoptotic cells (AC) still unclear. Here, we use confocal microscopy to image the phagocytosis of tumor cells by macrophages. We also observed that PDT-treated AC can activate Toll-like receptors (TLRs) which are present on macrophages surface. Besides, the increase in nitric oxide (NO) formation in macrophages was detected in real time by a laser scanning microscopy. This study provided more details for understanding the molecular mechanism of the immune response induced by PDT-treated AC.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a structural component of the outer membrane of gram negative bacteria, has been suggested that stimulates macrophages secrete a wide variety of inflammatory mediators, such as nitric oxide (NO). However, the cellular mechanisms of NO generation in macrophage by LPS stimulation are not well known. In this study, LPS stimulated NO generation in macrophage was determined by measuring fluorescence changes with a NO specific probe DAF-FM DA. Using the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) techniques, we found an increase of protein kinase C (PKC) activation was dynamically monitored in macrophages treated with LPS. Nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) translocated from the cytoplasm to the nucleus in macrophage was measured by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Moreover, the PKC inhibitor GÖ6983 inhibited LPS-stimulated NF-κB activation and NO production. These results indicated that LPS stimulated NF-κB mediated NO production by activating PKC.

A three dimensional full-range complex Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (complex FDOCT) system based on sinusoidal phase-modulating method is proposed. With the system, the range of imaging depth is doubled and the sensitivity degradation with the lateral scan distance is avoided. Fourier analysis of B-scan data along lateral scan distance is used for reconstructing the complex spectral interferograms. The B-scan based Fourier method improves the system tolerance of sample movement and makes data processing less time consuming. In vivo volumetric imaging of human skin with the proposed full-range FDOCT system is demonstrated. The mirror image rejection ratio is about 30 dB. The stratum corneum, the epidermis and the upper dermis of skin can be clearly identified in the reconstructed three dimensional FDOCT images.

Optical intrinsic signals (OIS) and laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) have been used for years in the study of the cerebral blood flow (CBF) and hemodynamic responses to the neural activity under functional stimulation. So far, most in vivo rodent experiments are based on the anesthesia model when the animals are in unconscious and restrained conditions. The influences of anesthesia on the neural activity have been documented in literature. In this study, we designed a miniature head-mounted dual-modal imager in freely moving animals that could monitor in real time the coupling of local oxygen consumption and blood perfusion of CBF by integrating different imaging modalities of OIS and LSCI. The system facilitates the study the cortical hemodynamics and neural-hemodynamic coupling in real time in freely moving animals.

The main objective of this paper is to reveal the mechanism of surrounding-sensitivity and improve it by designing nanostructures. Inspection of this sensitivity factor is further analyzed based on the micro/nano structures naturally located in Morpho butterfly scales. The theory of multilayer-thin-film interference is introduced to explain the surrounding-sensitivity. We also analyzed two dimensional optical models with similar geometrical designs to authenticate reciprocally with the theory and to steer the engineering design of artificial butterfly scales towards a new platform for chemical sensors. Rigorous coupled-wave analysis technique was employed for theoretical calculation of vector diffraction problems. It turned out that multilayer-thin-film interference, which occurs over structure composed of alternating films of high and low refractive index, was the main factor of surrounding-sensitivity. And the sensitivity is improved by the change of nanostructure material and some geometrical characteristics. These results can be implemented into the engineering designs of artificial butterfly scales for sensitive and selective detection of closely related chemicals.

Low-resolution and ill-posedness are the major challenges in diffuse optical tomography(DOT)/fluorescence molecular tomography(FMT). Recently, the multi-modality imaging technology that combines micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) with DOT/FMT is developed to improve resolution and ill-posedness. To take advantage of the fine priori anatomical maps obtained from micro-CT, we present an arbitrary boundary triangle mesh generation method for FMT/DOT/micro-CT multi-modality imaging. A planar straight line graph (PSLG) based on the image of micro-CT is obtained by an adaptive boundary sampling algorithm. The subregions of mesh are accurately matched with anatomical structures by a two-step solution, firstly, the triangles and nodes during mesh refinement are labeled respectively, and then a revising algorithm is used to modifying meshes of each subregion. The triangle meshes based on a regular model and a micro-CT image are generated respectively. The results show that the subregions of triangle meshes can match with anatomical structures accurately and triangle meshes have good quality. This provides an arbitrary boundaries triangle mesh generation method with the ability to incorporate the fine priori anatomical information into DOT/FMT reconstructions.

Gastric cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in the world; almost two-thirds of gastric cancer cases and deaths occur in less developed regions. The initial diagnosis of gastric cancer often is delayed because up to 80 percent of patients are asymptomatic during the early stages of stomach cancer. So the ability to perform real-time in vivo histological diagnosis for early gastric cancer at the cellular level during ongoing endoscopy is a long-standing goal of endoscopists. In this paper, using multiphoton microscopy (MPM) based on two-photon excited fluorescence (TPEF) and second harmonic generation (SHG), MPM images of human normal and cancerous gastric submucosa were obtained at excitation wavelength of 800 nm. The features such as the appearance of abnormal cells and the large loss of collagen in cancerous gastric submucosa were extracted to be as significant indicators to distinguish cancerous submucosa from normal submucosa. With the implementation of multiphoton microscopy concept in endoscopy applications, multiphoton endoscopy might realize in vivo histological diagnosis goal of endoscopists.

We experimentally demonstrated that the microsphere on the top surface of the sample can enhance the imaging capability of microscope, and possible to arrive a resolution below the conventional diffractive limit. The principle of the super-resolution was discussed, and mainly due to the transformation of surface wave to propagation wave. The mechanism of super-resolution and the corresponding phenomenon are presented in the paper.

Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) is a new spectroscopic technique, which improve a good complement for other spectroscopic techniques and has broad application prospects in the biomedical field. In this paper, a terahertz time-domain spectroscopy system is set up. Using this system, the amoxicillin drugs are detected, and the spectrum are analyzed.

Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy in American men and the second leading cause of deaths from cancer, after lung cancer. The tumor usually grows slowly and remains confined to the gland for many years. As the cancer advances, however, it can metastasize throughout other areas of the body, such as the bones, lungs, and liver. Surgical resection, hormonal therapy, chemotherapy and radiation therapy are the foundation of current prostate cancer therapies. Treatments for prostate cause both short- and long-term side effects that may be difficult to accept. Molecular mechanisms of prostate cancer metastasis need to be understood better and new therapies must be developed to selectively target to unique characteristics of cancer cell growth and metastasis. We have developed the "in vivo microscopy" to study the mechanisms that govern prostate cancer cell spread through the microenvironment in vivo in real-time confocal near-infrared fluorescence imaging. A recently developed "in vivo flow cytometer" and optical imaging are used to assess prostate cancer cell spreading and the circulation kinetics of prostate cancer cells. We have measured the depletion kinetics of cancer cells with different metastatic potential. Interestingly, more invasive PC-3 prostate cancer cells are depleted faster from the circulation than LNCaP cells.

Surface imprinted TiO2 membranes had been prepared and used as sensing membranes for basic tastes discrimination. Four basic taste molecules (citric acid, D-glucose, quinine hydrochloride and sodium L-glutamate for sour, sweet, bitter and umami respectively) were used as templates for imprinting. The sensor was fabricated in light-addressable potentiometric principle. Experimental results show that membranes imprinted by citric acid and quinine hydrochloride exhibit similar response behaviors towards four taste substances, that is citric acid > quinine hydrochloride > sodium L-glutamate > D-glucose. Membrane imprinted by sodium L-glutamate is sensitive towards quinine hydrochloride. Except for D-glucose imprinting membrane, other three membranes are inert to glucose. Combined with principal component analysis, four basic tastes can be well distinguished.

Liver cancer or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a serious malady with only 10% survival rate. HCC incidence and mortality both are highest in China. This disease is detected and diagnosed by ultra sound, CT or MRI scans which are quite expensive. Also the discrimination between cirrhosis and HCC are poor by this imaging technique. The conventional tissue biopsy is quite invasive and painful. In this context, in the new diagnostic procedure presented in this paper, all the three liver malfunctions, particularly liver cancer, could be detected and discriminated by the spectral feature of blood and urine with accuracy about 80%. All that we need are 5 ml of blood and 5 ml of urine. Hence this inexpensive non invasive, optical technique will have significant impact in screening, diagnosis and also prognosis of HCC in large segment of people in the populous Asian countries.

In dermatology applications, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy has been extensively investigated as a promising tool for the noninvasive method to distinguish melanoma from benign pigmented skin lesion (nevus), which is concentrated with the skin chromophores like melanin and hemoglobin. We carried out a theoretical study to examine melanin distribution in human skin tissue and establish a practical optical model for further pigmented skin investigation. The theoretical simulation was using junctional nevus as an example. A multiple layer skin optical model was developed on established anatomy structures of skin, the published optical parameters of different skin layers, blood and melanin. Monte Carlo simulation was used to model the interaction between excitation light and skin tissue and rebuild the diffuse reflectance process from skin tissue. A testified methodology was adopted to determine melanin contents in human skin based on in vivo diffuse reflectance spectra. The rebuild diffuse reflectance spectra were investigated by adding melanin into different layers of the theoretical model. One of in vivo reflectance spectra from Junctional nevi and their surrounding normal skin was studied by compare the ratio between nevus and normal skin tissue in both the experimental and simulated diffuse reflectance spectra. The simulation result showed a good agreement with our clinical measurements, which indicated that our research method, including the spectral ratio method, skin optical model and modifying the melanin content in the model, could be applied in further theoretical simulation of pigmented skin lesions.