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Director: Ruikang (Ricky) Wang
Press release
Baran awarded SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship
BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA – 20 May 2015 – Utku Baran has been awarded a 2015 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics for his potential contributions to the field of optics, photonics or related field.
Baran is currently a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington (USA). He is the author/co‐author of more than 12 international journal articles (2 of them as Editor's Choice), 8 peer-reviewed conference papers, and the co‐inventor of 2 pending US patents.
His work is highlighted by press, including Dermatology Times. His interests include MEMS, displays, biomedical optics and neuroscience.
In 2015 SPIE awarded $353,000 in education and travel scholarships to 126 outstanding individuals, based on their potential contribution to optics and photonics, or a related discipline. Award‐winning applicants were evaluated, selected and approved by the SPIE Scholarship Committee, Chaired by SPIE volunteer Cristina Solano.
High-resolution imaging technique can detect vascular, structural changes caused by acne
Researchers in Professor Ruikang Wang’s lab have demonstrated the capabilities of optical coherence tomography (OCT) -based microangiography in detecting high-resolution, three-dimensional structural and microvascular features of human skin affected by acne. The research team presents the feasibility of using this imaging technique to detect changes in microvasculature during acne lesion development and introduces a microvasculature-based biomarker to aid in the treatment of acne.
The researchers published their findings in a paper published in the March 2015 issue of Lasers in Surgery and Medicine, the official journal of the American Society for Laser Medicine & Surgery, Inc. Their piece, entitled “High resolution imaging of acne lesion development and scarring in human facial skin using OCT-based microangiography”, was selected as the journal’s ‘Editor’s Choice’ article of the month.
Acne is a common and distressing skin disease that affects the majority of the population between ages 11 and 30, and can impact quality of life in those affected. Clinicians employ various methods to assess the severity of acne, however, no single grading system has been universally accepted. The UW research team believes new research tools are needed to better understand the natural history, subtypes and triggers of acne, and to improve and compare treatment options. They hope their technique expands upon the expanding popularity of OCT in dermatology, providing an improved method of understanding, managing and treating acne. Their work is also promising to facilitate clinical trials in the treatment and diagnosis of other skin diseases.
July 30, 2013 | UW Bioengineering
Ruikang Wang elected SPIE Fellow
UW Bioengineering professor Dr. Ruikang (Ricky) Wang has been elected as a SPIE Fellow. Dr. Wang, who is known for investigating the properties of light, biotissue, and their interactions and pioneering biomedical optical imaging applications, is one of 69 fellows elected this year to SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.
"We're using light to see through the body, just like X-rays but light is safe, so you can see through tissues without harming the body," Dr. Ricky Wang
August 2013 | ResearchMedia Ltd
By developing novel non-invasive imaging techniques, Professor Ruikang Wang is improving knowledge about vascular processes and microcirculations, ultimately supporting better diagnosis, monitoring and therapeutic interventions
International Innovation, published by Research Media, is the leading global dissemination resource for the wider scientific, technology and research communities, dedicated to disseminating the latest science, research and technological innovations on a global level. More information and a complimentary subscription offer to the publication can be found at: www.researchmedia.eu
August 2013 | UW Bioengineering
Advanced Biophotonics: Tissue Optical Sectioning (Series in Optics and Optoelectronics)
Despite a number of books on biophotonics imaging for medical diagnostics and therapy, the field still lacks a comprehensive imaging book that describes state-of-the-art biophotonics imaging approaches intensively developed in recent years. Addressing this shortfall, Advanced Biophotonics: Tissue Optical Sectioning presents contemporary methods and applications of biophotonics imaging. Gathering research otherwise scattered in numerous physical, chemical, biophysical, and biomedical journals, the book helps researchers, bioengineers, and medical doctors understand major recent bioimaging technologies and the underlying biophotonics science.
Well-known international experts explore a variety of "hot" biomedical optics and biophotonics problems, including the use of photoacoustic imaging to investigate the molecular and cellular processes in living systems. The book also covers Monte Carlo modeling, tissue optics and tissue optical clearing, nonlinear optical microscopy, various aspects of optical coherence tomography, multimodal tomography, adaptive optics, and signal imaging.
The editors hope that this book will be useful for researchers, practitioners and professionals in the field of biophotnics, and may be used by scientists or professionals in other disciplines, such as physics and technology, fiber optics, spectroscopy, material science, biology, and medicine. Graduate and also undergraduate will also find this book a useful resource.
September 2013 | UW Bioengineering
Congratulations to Tim (Zhongwei Zhi), who was just awarded a Samuel and Althea Endowed Diabetes Graduate Fellowship from Diabetes Research Center.
The fellowship is made possible by an endowment from Samuel and Althea Stroum, who are University of Washington Benefactors and generous supporters of other civic and charitable organizations in the Seattle area. The fellowship will allow Tim to explore the feasibility of our novel OMAG imaging technology to image changes in retinal microvasculature in obese mice.
September 2013 | Research to Prevent Blindness
RPB Funding Yields Big Gains: Report from ARVO
Crowds at the ARVO 2013 meeting of nearly 12,000 vision scientists and physicians from around the world heard and saw the hundreds of ways that funding from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) is yielding major research advances for preserving vision and restoring eyesight.
Optical coherence tomography (OCT)
Highlights of the meeting included reports showing ways that RPB funding of an advanced technology called optical coherence tomography(OCT) is yielding research findings that are changing ophthalmology research and practice.
Perhaps the most groundbreaking use of OCT was presented by Ruikand (Ricky) Wang, Ph.D., who is using RPB funds to show unprecedented OCT structural and functional details of the eye. Dr. Wang is Professor of Bioengineering and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Washington Eye Center and recipient of RPB's Innovative Ophthalmic Research Award, a prize inaugurated in 2011 to fund "out of the box" basic research. Winning scientists receive $100,000 to apply to their area of unique work. Dr. Wang's OCT research, called optical microangiography (OMAG) and described below, is expected to give researchers new tools for understanding the causes of several vision disorders, and how and whether new treatments under development will have a significant impact.
January 27 2014 | UWToday Michelle Ma News and Information
Facelift complications eased with help of new 3-D imaging technique
Millions of people each year remove wrinkles, soften creases and plump up their lips by injecting a gel-like material into their facial tissue. These cosmetic procedures are sometimes called “liquid facelifts” and are said to be minimally invasive.
Physicians haven’t been able to pinpoint why this happens because until now it was difficult to see how the injected fluid, or filler, behaves in facial tissue.
New imaging technology from University of Washington engineers allows scientists to analyze what happens within the smallest blood vessels during an injection. This finding could be used to prevent accidents during procedures and help clinicians reverse the ill effects if an injection doesn’t go as planned.
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Advanced 3-D imaging technique maps micro blood flow in real-time
By Lia Unrau|June 10th, 2014|
Photo: MICROCIRCULATION IN ACTION UW Bioengineering’s new non-invasive 3-D imaging technique (overlay, in color) reveals a multitude of tiny capillaries pumping blood to a human retina. Camera methods currently used in the clinic (black and white image of same retina) cannot capture such detail and carry risks.
UW Bioengineer Ruikang Wang’s non-invasive method for imaging vascular health holds promise for better diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of diseases.
Press release
Reducing stroke damage may be next application for OCT technology now widely used in eye and vision healthcare
06 July 2015
BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA, and CARDIFF, UK -- An optical technology already widely used in ophthalmology and other medical fields holds potential to reveal how blood flows in the brain during stroke, providing information that could someday guide new treatments and reduce stroke-induced damage to the brain.
A new article published in the journal Neurophotonics describes work at the University of Washington (UW) using optical coherence tomography (OCT) to render high-resolution images and information about blood-flow dynamics over a broad region of the brain before, during, and after stroke-like states. Neurophotonics is published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.
"OCT is a well-established medical imaging technique that uses light waves to generate three-dimensional pictures of tissue structure," said Ruikang Wang, professor of bioengineering and ophthalmology at the UW. "Widely applied over the past two decades in clinical ophthalmology, it recently has been adapted for brain vascular imaging."
In "Vasodynamics of pial and penetrating arterioles in relation to arteriolo-arteriolar anastomosis after focal stroke," Wang and co-authors Utku Baran and Yuandong Li describe using OCT-based optical microangiography to reveal brain-vessel dynamics in tremendous detail during real-time experimental stroke.
"Dr. Wang has been a leader in developing OCT to measure microvascular angiograms and is now applying the methodology to explore the microvascular dynamics of blood vessels in the brain during stroke. This enables the imaging of far more vessels in a shorter period of time, and offers a greater depth penetration," noted Neurophotonics Editor-in-Chief David Boas of the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Not only were the UW researchers able to achieve high-resolution images of in vivo vascular networks across a large area, but they also were able to evaluate the vessel diameters, red-blood-cell velocity, and total blood-flow change across the area. In doing so, Wang said, they demonstrated a biologically initiated rescue mechanism in response to stroke. The new information could potentially provide guidance to clinicians treating stroke patients.
"Our key finding uncovers a non-uniform regulation event in penetrating arterioles -- variance in the dilation among important vessels circulating blood throughout the brain," Wang said. "Specifically, active dilation of penetrating arterioles during stroke requires strong connections -- anastomosis presence -- and dilation and therefore blood flow fail in the areas farther away from an anastomosis. Abundance of anastomoses may prevent or delay permanent neural damage by supplying blood to penetrating arterioles and recovering rescuable tissue called penumbra."
With the enhanced imaging capability, Wang and his colleagues may discover as-yet-unknown mechanisms by which the brain regulates blood flow to brain tissue, Boas said. "OCT, which already is a billion-dollar industry, is likely to go on to play an increasingly important role in the neurosciences," he said.
The work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants.
Noninvasive imaging method looks deeper inside the body to study living brain and other tissues
New light-based tool doubles image depth range
08 October 2015
BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA, and CARDIFF, UK -- Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) have used a noninvasive light-based imaging technology to literally see inside the living brain, providing a new tool to study how diseases like dementia, Alzheimer's, and brain tumors change brain tissue over time.
The work is reported by Woo June Choi and Ruikang Wang of the UW Department of Bioengineering, today in the Journal of Biomedical Optics, published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.
"The paper shows significantly enhanced imaging depth using a noninvasive laser-enabled technique for deep tissue imaging. In the brain, the imaging depth is almost doubled," said journal editorial board member Martin Leahy of the National University of Ireland, Galway. "The authors demonstrate for the first time an application in which this capability opens up a whole new window into the live intact hippocampus, for discovery in brain research."
From the experimental findings, the authors envision that this new optical coherence tomography (OCT) approach to brain study may enable examination of acute and chronic morphological or functional vascular changes in the deep brain, which has been rarely attempted before in the OCT community.
Choi and Wang used swept-source OCT (SS-OCT) powered by a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). In "Swept-source OCT powered by a 1.3 μm vertical cavity surface emitting laser enables 2.3 mm-deep brain imaging in mice in vivo," they describe how this technique could allow researchers to monitor morphological changes caused by diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia, and even to study the effects of aging on the brain.
The authors suggest that refining a VCSEL SS-OCT system may make it possible to do things that have been barely attempted in the OCT community, such as full-length imaging of a human eye from cornea to retina.
OCT is used to obtain sub-surface images of biological tissue at about the same resolution as a low-power microscope. An OCT camera can instantly deliver cross-section images of layers of tissue without invasive surgery or ionizing radiation.
Widely applied over the past two decades in clinical ophthalmology, it recently has been adapted for brain imaging in small animal models. Scientists have used OCT imaging to study the structure, neural activity, and blood flow in the cerebral cortex of live mice. Its application in neuroscience has been limited, however, because conventional OCT technology hasn't been able to image more than 1 millimeter below the surface of biological tissue.
OCT images are based on reflected light directly reflected at sub-surface. At depths greater than 1 mm, the proportion of light (ballistic photons) that escapes without scattering became too small to be detected, so conventional OCT systems have not been able to image deeper tissues such as the hippocampus, where many pathologies originate.
Recently, swept-source OCT powered by VCSELs has been developed, dramatically improving the usable imaging range because of its markedly improved system sensitivity. This new system offers a constant signal sensitivity to greater depths in tissue, extending the imaging range to more than 2 millimeters.
Press release
In vivo 1.3-μm VCSEL SS-OCT imaging of a 12-week-old adult mouse with cranial window preparation. (a) Representative OCT image visualizing morphological details of the cerebral cortex and subsequent brain compartments. (b) OCT brain anatomy showing good correlation with photomicrograph of a Nissl-stained histology section of the same strain mouse brain (reprinted with a public courtesy from Allen Institute for Brain Science). Journal of Biomedical Optics doi:10.1117/1.JBO.20.10.106004
By Laura Elizabeth Wright| January 23rd, 2018
EMPOWERING RESEARCH, ENGINEERING BETTER HEALTH FOR A BOUNDLESS FUTURE
CONGRATULATING RUIKANG (RICKY) WANG
Advancing biomedical invention as the WRF / David and Nancy Auth Innovator of Bioengineering
In recognition of the UW’s pioneering legacy in the arena of medical devices, and motivated by a desire to give back to the institution that enabled a transformative career experience, David and Nancy Auth have established a new award in the Department of Bioengineering. The WRF / David and Nancy Auth Innovator of Bioengineering award enhances the University of Washington’s ability to recruit and retain talented faculty who are active in translational research, and to pursue impactful strategic initiatives. The award recognizes prolific biomedical imaging inventor Ruikang (Ricky) Wang’s contributions to the field.
This award strengthens the UW’s innovation pipeline to biomedical industry. By fostering the development of technologies, treatments and tools for clinical use, the award advances health care worldwide.
“Since my career underwent a major transformation thanks to Dr. Robert Rushmer—the founder of bioengineering at the UW—I feel it is appropriate for me to provide this endowment as a way of honoring Dr. Rushmer and perpetuating his legacy,” says David. A former UW professor of electrical engineering and affiliate professor of bioengineering, David is an inventor or co-inventor of a number of widely used medical devices.
“We want to ensure that the UW continues its leadership role in bioengineering education by providing opportunities to support innovative people, which in turn maximizes their potential to make the medical world a better place,” Nancy explains.
The Auths’ gift is complemented by generous term support for Professor Wang’s research—including his work on the retina of the human eye utilizing ultra-sophisticated optical imaging instrumentation—from the Washington Research Foundation, which supports groundbreaking technology in the life sciences, physical sciences and information sciences.
“Professor Wang exemplifies UW Bioengineering’s commitment to finding creative solutions for unmet healthcare needs. We are delighted to partner with David and Nancy to support this high-impact work,” says Ronald Howell, CEO of Washington Research Foundation.
ABOUT RUIKANG (RICKY) WANG
A member of the UW’s faculty since 2010, Dr. Wang is currently a professor of bioengineering and ophthalmology. He is dedicated to developing novel and clinically relevant biomedical imaging techniques for the early diagnosis, treatment and management of disease. He has published 366 scientific papers, and is inventor or co-inventor on 46 patents and patent applications. As a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), he is among the nation’s top two percent of medical and biological engineers.
Utku Baran Receives SPIE Scholarship
High-resolution imaging of acne
Prof. Ruikang Wang selected SPIE Fellow
Imaging human retina
Advance cerebral imaging
Newly published book: Advanced biophotonics
Zhongwei Zhi was awarded a Samuel and Althea Endowed Diabetes Graduate Fellowship
Report from ARVO: RPB Funding yields big gain
Facelift complications eased with OMAG
Roberto Reif's paper appeared on QIMS front cover
Siavash Yousefi's paper appeared on QIMS front cover
Yali Jia's paper appeared on JBO's front cover
Shaozhen Song''s paper appeared on JBO's front cover
Siavash Yousefi's paper appeared on IEEE STQE front cover
Advanced 3-D imaging technique maps micro blood flow in real-time
Utku Baran and Yuandong Li's paper highlighted by multiple media channels
Woo June Choi's paper reported by SPIE
Prof. Ruikang Wang named WRF/David and Nacy Auth Innovator of Bioengieering
Contact Info
Department of Bioengineering, N410 William H. Foege Building, 3720 15th Ave NE Seattle, WA 98195
E-mail: wangrk @ uw dot edu
Phone: (2o6) 616-5o25
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