Biophotonics Technologies Applied at Point of Care

The use of optical approaches outside specialized laboratories requires easy-to-use optical instruments with a high technology readiness level for the user. Here, the application of spectroscopic methods to address biomedical research has grown due to advancements in instrumentation and an enhanced cross-disciplinary dialogue between spectroscopists and end users like clinicians.

Juergen Popp reports on various innovative technological concepts for bringing optical approaches closer to clinical use. He focuses on molecular-sensitive spectroscopic methods — with particular emphasis on Raman spectroscopy — and their combination with other spectroscopic/optical modalities, to provide a multimodal approach.

Popp will start with novel multimodal spectroscopic instrumentation (e.g., innovative Raman fiber probes, clinically usable multimodal microscopes, or endospectroscopic probes) for precise surgical guidance and intraoperative histopathological examination of tissue under in vivo or near in vivo conditions. He also covers a high-throughput Raman spectroscopy platform for the analysis of cells. With this platform, Raman spectra of tens of thousands of cells can be rapidly measured via complete automation of the entire process chain. Finally, Popp introduces an automated Raman platform in combination with specially developed chips (e.g., a dielectrophoresis chip) for microbial analysis. He will present the application in a clinical environment to demonstrate the rapid identification of sepsis pathogens and antibiotic susceptibility testing.

About the presenter
Juergen Popp, Ph.D., holds a chair for physical chemistry at the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and is also the scientific director of the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Jena. His research interests are mainly concerned with biophotonics and optical health technologies. He has published more than 800 journal papers and received several awards such as an honorary doctoral degree from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, or the prestigious Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award. In 2016, he was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows. In 2018, Popp was awarded the renowned Ioannes Marcus Marci Medal of the Czechoslovak Spectroscopy Society and won the third prize of the Berthold Leibinger Innovationspreis and the Kaiser-Friedrich-Forschungspreis. In 2019, he won the Ralf-Dahrendorf Award for the European Research Area and the Research Award for Applied Sciences of the Free State of Thuringia, Germany. In 2020, he became an OSA Senior Member.