Lab News

September 2024

FOIL welcomes three new talented members, Menglin Shi, Carol Zhang, and George Rabadi.

March 2024

Congratulations to Maya Chawla, who will start her law shool with a full scholarship.

The opening workshop of Center of Engineering for Vision and Ophthalmology will be organized on June 14, 2024.

January 2024

Congratulations to Delan Hao, who received PicoQuant Young Investigator Award at the SPIE Photonic West 2024.

December 2023

Congratulations to Justin Chen, who received the American Heart Association pre-doctoral fellowship. The new project will focus on investigating any potential side effects of hypertension drugs on the retina.

October 2023

The latest version (v2.0) of the Python package for vis-OCT image processing is online and ready for download from www.visibleOCT.org.

The Center of Engineering for Vision and Ophthalmology (CVEO) website is alive. More information regarding the opening workshop, internal seed grants, and fellowship opportunities will be announced in the coming months.

September 2023

Congratulations to Vera Fan, who received the Christina Enroth-Cugell and David Cugell Fellowship for Visual Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering.

August 2023

Collaborative project with Prof. Yang Hu to develop the next-generation patterned retinal stimulation integrated with two-photon microscopy to classify retinal ganglion cells in vivo and their functional alterations in glaucoma received a new five-year NIH/NEI R01 award.

FOIL welcomes two new Ph.D. students, Zihang Yan and Justin Chen, to join the highly dynamic and collaborative team.

May 2023

Congratulations to Raymond Fang, who received an NIH/NEI F30 grant and an ISPB Seed Research Grant.

February 2023

Congratulations to Raymond Fang, who received the BrightFocus Foundation Travel Grant to attend ARVO 2023.

February 2023

Collaborative project with Prof. Tsutomu Kume to develop and apply novel ocular imaging and molecular analysis of anterior eye segment to better understand congenital glaucoma received a new five-year NIH/NEI R01 award.

FOIL welcomes two new members, Raymond Atkinson and Fengyuanshan Xu, to join the highly dynamic and collaborative team.

September 2022

Collaborative project with Profs. Evan Scott, Mark Johnson, and Paul Kaufman to develop new drug delivery technology targeting the conventional outflow pathway to manage glaucoma received a new four-year NIH/NEI R01 award.

Congratulations to David Miller,s who received the McC terminal year fellowship.

Congratulations to Wei Hong Yeo, who received the Christina Enroth-Cugell and David Cugell Fellowship for Visual Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering.

Congratulations to Jailene Silveri, who received the travel award to attend the AIMBE Public Policy Institute.

July 2022

Congratulations to Dr. Ian Rubinoff who started his new position at Intutive Surgical, Inc..

May 2022

Congratulations to Dr. Yang Zhang, who accepted the offer to become an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University.

Congratulations to Dr. Siyu Chen, who started his own tenure-track Assistant Professor position at Oregon Health & Science University.

Collaborative project with Prof. Françisco M. Raymo and Prof. Yang Zhang to develop new photoactivatable molecular labels for spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy received a new NIH/NIGMS R01 award.

January 2022

Congratulations to Dr. Lisa Beckmann who started her new position at Intutive Surgical, Inc..

December 2021

Collaborative work with Prof. Vadim Backmen and Prof. Daniela Matei to establish Northwestern University Center for Chromatin NanoImaging in Cancer (NU-CCNIC) received a new NIH/NCI U54 award. We will develop and disseminate a multi-scale optical imaging platform, from live cells to single molecules, to investigate and analyze chromatin and chromatin alterations in cancers..

October 2021

FOIL has positions for new Ph.D. students. Please contact us if you are interested.

June 2021

Collaborative project with Prof. Joel Schuman to investigate the clinical impact of visible-light optical coherence tomography on glaucoma care received a new NIH/NEI U01 award.

Congratulations to Dr. Yang Zhang for receiving his first NIH/NIGMS R21 grant as the PI. This new grant will support his work on developing new bright and switchable fluorophores for highly multiplexed super-resolution microscopy using spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy.

Congratulations to Dr. Yang Zhang and Dr. Junghun Kweon for receiving a 2021 ISPB Research Grant to investigate intracellular alterations in corneal endothelial cells induced by ROCK inhibitor therapy in experimental glaucoma mouse models.

March 2021

Congratulations to Ian Rubinoff, David A. Miller, and Ben Brenner who respectively received the Joanne G. Angle Travel Grant, Knights Templar Eye Foundation Travel Grant, and Retina Research Foundation/Joseph M. and Eula C. Lawrence Travel Grant to attend ARVO 2021. A record number of travel grants in lab history.

January 2021

Northwestern undergraduates, if you are skilled in Python, Arduino, and embedded system, we have paid positions for you. Check it out here!

November 2020

Collaborative project with Prof. Cheng Sun to develope new optical detection and advanced data analysis technologies for spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy received a new NIH/NIGMS R01 award.

October 2020

Latest work on imaging retinal ganglion cell nerve fiber bundles together with angiography using visible-light optical coherence tomography is now published. We call this new technology OCT fibergram or OCTF and will continue to improve its image quality. OCTF provides new ways to investigate retinal ganglion cells in vivo to understand both blinding disease progression and management.

September 2020

Spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy (sSMLM) work received a new R01 from NIH/NIGMS. We wil develop new DNA imaging technologies with the next-level multiplexing capability and much improved spatial resolution/precision.

July 2020

We are hiring. We look for one research technician and two postdoctoral fellows to join our extremely friendly, productive, and collaborative group.

June 2020

Our latest work on improving both spatial and spectral precision in spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy through symmetrical-dispersion is published by Light: Science & Applications and highlighted by McC news.

Collaborative project with Dr. Françisco M. Raymo to develop new molecular labels for single-molecule localization microscopy received $580k from NSF.
Collaborative project with Dr. Thomas O'Halloran, Dr. Chris Jacobsen, and Dr. Cheng Sun to develop new technology resources for quantitative elemental mapping in biological tissues received $8.2M from NIH/NIGMS.

McCNews National Resource to Unlock the Role of Metals in Human Health

May 2020

Collaborative work on improving the imaging speed of spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy is among the April top download from OSA's Biomedical Optics Express. Check it out!

Congratulations to Janel and Ki-Hee, who successfully (Zoom) defended their Ph.D. theses in the troubling times.

March 2020

RainbowSTORM by Janel Davis and other team members is now online at github. RainbowSTORM is an ImageJ plug-in to process spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy data. Please download it, try it, and provide your feedback.

Feb. 2020

Dr. Ji Yi accepted a new position to become a faculty member jointly in Department of Ophthalmology and Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Congratulations!

Collaborative project with Prof. Sarah Zhang on investigating ER stress in diabetic retinopathy received new NIH/NEI R01 award.

Jan. 2020

Congratulations to Brain Soetikno for mathing with the Stanford Ophthalmology research residency program! Enjoy the better weather there.

Oct. 2019

Our paper enetitled "Longitudinal deep-brain imaging in mouse using visible-light optical coherence tomography through chronic microprism cranial window," is the No. 1 Top Downloads in September 2019 by Biomedical Optics Express.

Sep. 2019

BioPhotonics Magazing highlights our visible-light optical coherence tomography work and its potential impact on ophthalmology, although marketing challenges remain. Check it out.

May 2019

Ki-hee Song's new paper entitle "Three-dimensional biplane spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy" is now online with OSA Optica. Congratulations! News reported by Northwestern McCormick Engineeringand News story by IOP Physics World

April 2019

Isabella Rischall received the highly competitive Northwestern University Undergraduate Research Grant to investigate the influance of fringe washout on oximetry using visible-light optical coherence tomography. Congratulations!

March 2019

Ki-hee Song received the Christina Enroth-Cugell and David Cugell Graduate Fellowship in Biomedical Engineering and Visual Neuroscience. Congratulations!

September 2018

Collaborative project with Profs. Juan De Pablo, Ali Shilatifard, and Vadim Backman to investigate chromatin remodeling using multi-scale modeling and label-free super-resolution imaging received $2M Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) Chromatin and Epigenetic Engineering (CEE) award from NSF.

Collaborative project with Opticent Inc., Prof. Amani Fawzi, and Prof. Joel Schuman to develope the next-generation clincial visible-light optical coherence tomograhy received $1.2M NIH/NEI SBIR Phase II award.

May 2018

First ARVO visible-light OCT session was a big successes in Honolulu. Thanks all the organizers and speakers for putting together such an impressive program.

Our collaborative paper entitled "High‐speed 3D printing of millimeter‐size customized aspheric imaging lenses with sub 7 nm surface roughness" made the cover story of the May 3rd, 2018 issue of Advanced Materials. Congratulations!

Collaborative project to investigate high intraocular pressure-induced damage in the retina using visible-light OCT received $2M from NIH/NEI.

Collaborative project to investigate corneal angiogenesis using visible-light OCT received a new R01 from NIH/NEI.

April 2018

Lisa Beckmann is selected to join the 2018 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Big Congratulations!

January 2018

Our paper entitled "In vivo superresolution imaging of neuronal structure in the mouse brain" made the cover story of the 2018's first issue of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. Find the Research Highlight here.

November 2017

For the second time in a row, our visible-light OCT paper (now on human retinal oxygenation quantification) is among the annual 20 most downloaded OCT papers from Biomedical Optics Express.

October 2017

Collaborative research to study brain tumors using our super-resolution imaging received $120k continuing support from Northwestern Innovative Initiatives Incubators (I3) interdisciplinary program.

August 2017

Our paper entitled "Optical coherence tomography angiography of retinal vascular occlusions produced by imaging-guided laser photocoagulation" is among the top downloads from July 2017 by Biomedical Optics Express.

May 2017

Siyu Chen received the Biomedical Engineering Annual Dissertation Award, which is given to one Ph.D. graduate every year.

Brian Soetinko received the Spring 2017 Amgen Scholars Alumni Travel Award and the Biomedical Engineering Annual Research Progress Award.

Janel Davis is invited to attend the 3rd Global Grand Challenges Summit in July 2017 in Washington DC. The Summit is sponsored by the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE), the UK Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE), and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).

Janel Davis joined the 2017 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

Congratulations everyone!

Collaborative work to develop new spectroscopic super-resolution imaging technology received $586k from NSF.

April 2017

Our paper entitled "Retinal oximetry in humans using visible-light optical coherence tomography" is among the top downloads from March 2017 by Biomedical Optics Express.

February 2017

Our PNAS paper reporting the observation of visible light excited "fluorescence blinking" from unmodified DNA for super-resolution imaging received one of six 2016 Cozzarelli Prize selected by the PNAS Office at the National Academy of Sciences. Congratulations everyone!

http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2017/02/backman-and-zhang-paper-wins-cozzarelli-prize.html

McCormick Research News highlights our work on transparent micro-ring resonator ultrasound detector. Open for collaboration.

http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2017/02/new-method-to-detect-ultrasound-with-light.html

January 2017

Dr. Biqin Dong received the "Picoquant Young Investigator Award" for his presentation entitled "Spectroscopic photon localization microscopy: breaking the resolution limit of single molecule localization microscopy" at the 2017 SPIE Photonic West (BIOS) conference. This is a collaborative work from the Zhang, Backman, and Sun labs. Congratulations and great job!

Collaborative work to develop retinal oxygen delivery models received $430k from NIH/NEI.

New collaboraion opportunities: to test our transparent, all-optical, ultra-wideband, mini ultrasound detector. Click the picture below for more information.

Our paper entitled "Optical detection of ultrasound in photoacoustic imaging" made the cover story of the 2017's first issue of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. Find the Research Highlight here.

December 2016

Our paper entitled "Human retinal imaging using visible-light optical coherence tomography guided by scanning laser ophthalmoscopy" is the No. 1 among the Top Downloaded Articles on Ophthalmology Applications in 2016 from Biomedical Optics Express.

October 2016

Our work on optical coherence tomography and microfluidics sorting is featured by OCT News as Feature of the Week (10/13/2016).

September 2016

Collaborative research to study brain tumors using our new super-resolution imaging technoogy received $120k seed fund from Northwestern Innovative Initiatives Incubators (I3) interdisciplinary program.

FOIL welcomes new Ph.D. students Ki-hee Song and Lisa Beckmann. Welcome!

Our paper entitled "Imaging hemodynamic response after ischemic stroke in mouse cortex using visible-light optical coherence tomography " is among the top downloads from August 2016 by Biomedical Optics Express.

August 2016

Collaborative research to investigate the molecular pathway of retinal ischemia in diabetic retinopathy received $2.3M from NIH/NEI.

July 2016

Congratulations to Biqin and Luay for publishing "Super-Resolution Intrinsic Fluorescence Imaging of Chromatin Utilizing Native, Unmodified Nucleic Acids for Contrast" on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Congratulations to Janel to be selected as a Northwestern BTP fellow sponsored by NIH.

June 2016

Congratulations to Biqin Dong and Ben Urban for publishing two critical papers on Nature Communications and Scientific Reports to report our newly developed super-resolution spectroscopic optical imaging technology.

April 2016

Collaborative work to develope visible-light optical coherence tomography for HIV-relatived applications received $50,000 from the Third Coast Center for AIDS Research.

February 2016

Brian Soetikno is awarded a five-year NIH F30 pre-doctoral fellowship grant. Good job!

Our work on visible-light optical coherence tomography is selected to receive the 2016 SPIE Translational Researsch Award.

Wenzhong Liu sucessfully defended his Ph.D. thesis. Congratulations!

Our paper entitled "Measuring oxygen saturation in retinal and choroidal circulations in rats using visible light optical coherence tomography angiography" is among the top downloaded OCT articles in the year of 2015 by Biomedical Optics Express.

November 2015

FOIL welcomes new members visiting Ph.D. student Magalie Bondu and new BME Ph.D. student Janel Davis.

October 2015

Collaborative research to improve clinical care of late-stage diabetic retinopathy using visible-light optical coherence tomography received $2M from NIH/NIDDK.

Our paper entitle "Human retinal imaging using visible-light optical coherence tomography guided by scanning laser ophthalmoscopy" is among the top downloaded articles in September 2015 by Biomedical Optics Express. It is the third straight month that FOIL papers are among the top downloaded articles

September 2015

Our paper entitled "Measuring oxygen saturation in retinal and choroidal circulations in rats using visible light optical coherence tomography angiography" is among the top downloaded articles in August 2015 by Biomedical Optics Express.

August 2015

Collaborative project to improve Biomedical Electronics education received $159k from NSF.

First human imaging using visible-light optical coherence tomography published [link].

Dr. Ji Yi started his independent career as an Assistant Professor at Boston University. Congratulations and thanks for all the contributions to FOIL in the past three years!

Our paper entitled "Measuring oxygen saturation in retinal and choroidal circulations in rats using visible light optical coherence tomography angiography" is among the top downloaded articles in July 2015 by Biomedical Optics Express.

July 2015

Collaborative research to develope deep-tissue, super-resolution optical imaging technology for neuroscience received $200k from the Chicago Biomedical Consortium with support from the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust.

Research work to develope label-free super-resolution optical imaging technology received $70k from the McCormick School of Engineering Catalyst Award.

May 2015

Brian Soetikno is awarded the 2015 SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship. Congratulations!

Ji Yi's paper reporting imaging retinal metabolic variations is accepted by Light: Science & Applications.

Dr. Lian Duan joined FOIL. Welcome!

February 2015

Brian Soetikno and Siyu Chen received Travel Grants to attend the 2015 ARVO Annual Conference. Congratulations!

NSF I-CORP award will support our effort to commercialize new OCT technologies developed in FOIL.

January 2015

Eric Yang is featured in McCormick Magazine 2014 Fall issue [pdf]. Here are a few niceer photos [1] [2].

August 2014

Wenzhong Liu is selected as a finalist to compete for the best student paper at the IEEE EMBC 2014.

June 2014

Eric Yan received $5,000 McCormick Summer Undergraduate Research Grant.

Christina Chan received $4,000 Biomedical Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Grant.

Chintan Pathak is admitted by Feinberg School of Medicine and will start his MD study in 2015 here at Northwestern.

Dr. Hao Li received a one-year Research Seed Grant from the Illinois Society for Prevention of Blindness.

Congratulations to all, for the great achivements.

April 2014

Dr. Ji Yi received a three-year fellowship grant from Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. Congratulations!

Collaborative research to develope optically-transparent, light-based ultrasonic detector for photoacoustic imaging received $645k from NSF.

Eric Y. Yang (BME class of 2015) joined FOIL. Welcome!

January 2014

Christina Chan (BME class of 2015) joined FOIL. Welcome!

Kevin Zhang received multiple MD/Ph.D. (MSTP) offers with full financial aid. Congratulations!

August 2013

Wenzhong Liu is selected as one of 42 pre-doctoral students from around the country to receive the prestigious International Student Research Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). According to HHMI, "this fellowship recognizes your exceptional academic and personal achievements and reflects HHMI’s confidence in your great potential to become a leader in academic science." Congratulations! Job well done. McCormick News

June 2013

Dr. Ji Yi received a one-year Research Seed Grant from the Illinois Society for Prevention of Blindness for his project "Non-invasively quantifying retinal oxygen saturation by visible-light optical coherence tomography." Congratulations!

April 2013

Kevin Zhang received the Overall Oral Presentation Award in the 2013 Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium.

FOIL welcoms new member Dr. Ben Urban.

March 2013

Steffi Perkins will soon start her Ph.D. study on medical imaging at Stanford University. Congratulations. We are sorry to see her go.

SPIE Newsroom "Combining light and sound for retinal imaging"

Northwestern University News "Developing new ways to treat macular degeneration"

News from McCormick "Consortium to develop new ways to treat macular degeneration"

October 2012

David Qiu and Kevin Zhang were selected as "Fifty For The Future" by the Illinois Technology Foundation.

Kevin Zhang received Northwestern Undergraduate Research Grant.

Collaborative research to develope drugs for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) received $10.2 Million NIH award.

Hao F. Zhang received $20,000 from Northwestern Murphy Society to enhance BME333: Modern Optical Microscopy and Imaging.

June 2012

Dr. Qing Wei received a one-year Research Seed Grant from the Illinois Society for Prevention of Blindness for his project "High-definition choroidal vascular imaging." Congratulations.

March 2012

New FOIL website is up and running. Thanks Allen for the great work.

February 2012

FOIL welcomes new Ph.D. student Siyu Daniel Chen.

September 2011

Wenzhong Liu joined FOIL as a new Ph.D. student.

August 2011

Collaborative work on stimulated Raman imaging is awarded a 3-year NSF grant.

Tan Liu defended his Ph.D. thesis and Santhosh Yegnaraman defended his M.S. thesis.

March 2011

Collaborative work on developing multimodal retinal imaging technology for early detection of diabetic retinopathy is awarded a NIH R01 grant.

February 2011

Hao F. Zhang is awarded the NSF CAREER award.

December 2010

FOIL relocated to Northwestern University, Evanston IL.

Dan successfully defended his thesis and received Master degree. Congratulations!

October 2010

Collaborative work on studying geno- & pheno-type correlation in diabetic retinopathy is awarded a NIH Challenge Grant (RC4).

May 2010

Karanvir Kaleka received the Outstanding Student Award by the College of Engineering. Congratulations!

April 2010

Dr. Fengli Gao joined FOIL.

April 2010

Tan Liu received the Grand Prize for being the 1st place in the College of Engineering graduate student poster competition. Congratulations!

March 2010

Our 3D retinal image is highlighted by OSA Virtual Journal of Biomedical Optics.

March 2010

Our retinal imaging work is highlighted by OCTNews.org as "Feature Of the Week 3/14/10".

Feb. 2010

Our work on the photoacoustic imaging of retina is published by Optics Express.

Jan. 2010

Our work on the integration of fiber-optic confocal microscopy and optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy is published by Optics Express.

Dec. 2009

Post-doc Dr. Zhixing Xie joined Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor as a faculty member. Congratulations and good luck.

August 2009

Dr. Qing Wei joined FOIL. Welcome.

May 2009

A few media coverages of FOIL. UWM, The Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Business Journal of Milwaukee, and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel..

September 2008

Tan Liu and Jing Wang joined FOIL. Welcome.

April 2008

Daniel Zirbel joined FOIL. Welcome.

January 2008

Dr. Zhixing Xie joined FOIL. Welcome.

August 2007

FOIL created.