BEST Engineering Competition 2011

Advanced Optical Imaging Methods and Technologies for non-Destructive and non-Invasive Diagnosis.

Optical imaging is a rapidly emerging field, with widespread applications ranging from satellite imaging, to clinical diagnosis and molecular biology. There is currently an ongoing revolution in this field, which is led by the interdisciplinary cooperation of engineers, physicists, biologists, physicians, etc.
Both academia and industry have allocated significant resources for advancing this field. Optical imaging is currently advancing the field of biophotonics by offering unprecedented visualization of the tissue microstructure and enabling quantitative mapping of disease-specific endogenous and exogenous substances. With these advances, optical imaging technologies are becoming a powerful clinical tool for non-invasive and objective diagnosis, for guided treatment and for evaluating and monitoring therapies.
Recent developments in visible and infrared diffuse spectroscopy and imaging, spectral imaging, optical coherence tomography, confocal imaging, molecular imaging and dynamic spectral imaging will be presented together with laboratory hands-on practice. Their perspectives and challenges will be discussed.

Academic information

Fields of activity: Aerospace/Aeronautical Engineering, Applied Sciences, Architectural Engineering, Automotive Engineering, Biological/Biotechnical/Gene Engineering, Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry/Chemical Technology, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science/Automatic Control/Informatics, Control Engineering/Systems engineering, Electrical/Electromechanical Engineering, Electronic/Electrotechnical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Machine & Instrument engineering/Design, Materials Engineering, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, Mining/Mineral Resources Engineering, Optics/Optometry, Physics/Physics Engineering, Power Engineering, Production Engineering/Management, Telecommunications/Electronics

Content and topics: Physics and engineering of scientific electronic imaging, optical spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging, 3-D and in-depth optical imaging (OCT etc), molecular imaging, the optical biopsy concept with application in non invasive diagnosis of cervical neoplasia. Hands-on familiarization with relevant scientific equipment.

Learning goals and objectives: To get acquaint with scientific electronic imaging physics and engineering, to get familiar with novel and advanced imaging modalities and instrumentation breakthroughs and to understand their diagnostic/analytical power in widespread applications with emphasis on biomedical diagnosis.

Associate Professor Costas Balas

Costas Balas is an Associate Professor at the department of Electronic and Computer Engineering of the Technical University of Crete. He received the degree in physics and the Ph.D. degree in medical physics in 1987 and 1992, respectively from the University of Patras, Greece. Since completing the doctorate degree, he has been working for 3 years as a postdoctoral research fellow in National and European collaborative research projects and as a research consultant in medical device companies. In 1995 he joined, as a senior research scientist, the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH)-Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL), the major Greek National Lab.
During the period 1996-2001 he founded and he was the head of the Biomedical Imaging and Spectroscopy Lab of IESL. During his tenure at FORTH, Dr. Balas developed and patented innovative platform imaging technologies for the non-invasive diagnosis of precancerous lesions. His developments comprised the basis for the foundation (in 2001) of forth-photonics as a FORTH spin-off, established in both Greece and United Kingdom. Since 2001 he is member of the Board of Directors and R&D consultant of forth-photonics. His scientific and technological innovations have been converted to certified and clinically tested products, which have been adopted from leading Hospitals and Universities world-wide, changing medical practices.
In 2001 he joined as an Associate Professor Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering of the Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece, where he developed Optoelectronics and Applications as a new research activity of the Department’s Electronics Lab. He is currently the optoelectronics group leader and he teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses. He has published several articles in scientific and technical journals and conference proceedings and holds international patents. He is a member of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and SPIE.