Barcodes expand range of high-resolution sensor

Optical barcodes for multimode sensing have potential applications in biomedical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, chemical sensing and more

01-May-2024 - The same geometric quirk that lets visitors murmur messages around the circular dome of the whispering gallery at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London or across St. Louis Union Station’s whispering arch also enables the construction of high-resolution optical sensors. Whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) ...

Lew lab sheds new light on cell membranes

Researchers can now image cells, motions of molecules in 6D

31-May-2022 - Research from the lab of Matthew Lew at Washington University in St. Louis offers entirely new ways to see the very small. The research — two papers by PhD students at the McKelvey School of Engineering — was published in the journals Optica and Nano Letters. They have developed novel hardware ...

New fuel-delivery route for cells identified

Findings shed light on chronic diseases, aging

10-Jan-2019 - Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a previously unknown route for cellular fuel delivery, a finding that could shed light on the process of aging and the chronic diseases that often accompany it. With age, cells gradually lose their ability to take ...

Water world

21-Nov-2017 - Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have traced the paths of three water channels in an ancient photosynthetic organism to provide the first comprehensive, experimental study of how that organism uses and regulates water to create energy. Photosynthesis is the chemical conversion of ...

A new trick for controlling emission direction in microlasers

21-Jun-2016 - Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found a way to give photons, or light packets, their marching orders. The researchers have capitalized on the largesse of an energy state in an optical field to make photons in their lasing system travel in a consistent mode, either clockwise ...

PET detects neuroinflammation in multiple sclerosis

16-Jun-2016 - The triggers of autoimmune inflammation in multiple sclerosis (MS) have eluded scientists for many years, but molecular imaging is bringing researchers closer to identifying them, while providing a means of evaluating next-generation therapies for MS. More than 2.3 million people are affected by ...

Lab-made complexes are “sun sponges”

23-Aug-2013 - A ring of protein and pigments, half synthetic and half natural, can be used to quickly prototype light-harvesting antennas that absorb more sunlight than fully natural ones In diagrams it looks like a confection of self-curling ribbon with bits of bling hung off the ribbon here and there. In ...

A new genetic fingerprint lives in your belly

07-Dec-2012 - Our bodies contain far more microbial genes than human genes. And a new study suggests that just as human DNA varies from person to person, so too does the massive collection of microbial DNA in the intestine.The research is the first to catalog the genetic variation of microbes that live in the ...

Pushing the Boundaries: New dye could open the door to in vivo applications of fluorescence anisotropy

07-Feb-2012 - US scientists have synthesized a polymethine dye that can be used for fluorescence anisotropy imaging in the near-infrared (NIR) spectral range, making new in vivo applications of this technique possible. Until now, the method has been limited to the visible part of the spectrum, mainly being ...

Advance toward earlier detection of melanoma

13-Aug-2010 - Scientists are reporting development of a substance to enhance the visibility of skin cancer cells during scans with an advanced medical imaging system that combines ultrasound and light. The hybrid scanner could enable doctors to detect melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, in its ...