Ariane wins the SPIE Translation Research Award at Photonics West 2025
Congrats to my Boston University Ph.D. student Ariane Garrett on her Translational Research Award at SPIE PhotonicsWest 2025. This is a very competitive award and she gave a very nice acceptance talk entitled "Speckle contrast optical spectroscopy improves cuffless blood pressure estimation compared to photoplethysmography."
Thanks to the program committee and the Translational Research Chairs, Aaron Aguirre and Gabriela Apiou-Sbirlea.
See the program committee here.
New article about our lab
In the Brink, BU's magazine: https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/using-light-to-monitor-blood-pressure-and-track-cancer-treatment/
New preprint on cuffless blood pressure with speckle contrast optical spectroscopy
Today we're sharing our new bioRxiv preprint on cuffless blood pressure measurements using high-speed speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS). We show that measurements of pulsatile blood flow with SCOS can substantially improve blood pressure estimates above what's available with photoplethysmography (PPG). We believe this opens the door to continuous ambulatory blood pressure without a cuff, as well as the potential for more general personal health monitoring.
This project has been in the works for several years, and started as a collaboration between my Lab, David Boas and his lab, and Meta, including Nil Gurel and Edbert Sie among others. Ariane Garrett and Byungchan (Kenny) Kim are the talented Ph.D. students pushing this work forward.
New paper on postprandial (after a meal) tissue optical property changes in SPIE Biophotonics Discovery
Very happy to announce that today my lab published our first paper in hashtag#SPIE hashtag#BiophotonicsDiscovery. Manuscript here: link
My talented student Anahita Pilvar, along with our collaborator Jorge Plutzky at Harvard Med/Brigham and Women's Hospital, went on a several year journey to try to understand how a specific meal could affect your skin and tissue optical properties in the few hours after the meal was consumed. The results were quite surprising, and I'll provide a brief summary here:
First, we used a custom technique called Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI) to image the back of the hand of subjects every hour for 5 hours after they had either a very low or very high fat meal. 15 subjects were measured, each had a low fat and high fat meal, but on different days. SFDI can quantify tissue optical properties, as well as tissue hemoglobin, water, and lipid concentrations dependent on the wavelengths used. Here we quantified properties at 3 wavelengths, 730, 880, and 1100 nm.
We also took blood pressure, heart rate, and serial blood draws to measure the amount of triglycerides, cholesterol, and glucose in the blood.
What we found is that the high fat and low fat meals caused dramatically different changes in the optical properties and oxygen saturation of the peripheral tissue we measured (back of the hand). A very high fat meal caused an increase in tissue oxygen saturation, and a very low fat meal caused a decrease. The peak of the changes occurred at 3 hours after the meal, the same time triglycerides spikes (see figure below). We also saw changes in optical absorption at 880 nm, oxyhemoglobin concentration, and a few other parameters.
We then trained a machine learning model to predict triglyceride levels using SFDI measurements, and achieved a pretty good accuracy, with errors around 40 mg/dL.
The several hour period after a meal (called the postprandial window) is well known to provide important information about cardiovascular disease risk. For example, if your triglyceride levels spike too high, or stay elevated for too long, you are at higher risk for future cardiovascular events, like heart attack and stroke. Serial blood draws are impractical except for research. Optical techniques like SFDI might be a better non-invasive way to track the postprandial state and assess cardiovascular disease risk.
Main methods and results shown here below, adapted from the manuscript figures with annotation added.
The first issue of SPIE Biophotonics Discovery is out!
Here it is!
Darren will be the inaugural editor-in-chief for the SPIE journal Biophotonics Discovery
Darren has been named the new editor-in-chief of SPIE Biophotonics Discovery. The journal will provide an outlet for basic science and applications of emerging and novel biophotonic techniques.
Our SWIR SFDI paper made the cover of JBO!
Anahita Pilvar, Jorge Plutzky, Mark C. Pierce, Darren Roblyer, “Shortwave infrared spatial frequency domain imaging for non-invasive measurement of tissue and blood optical properties”, Journal of Biomedical Optics, 27(6), 066003 (2022), link
Our wearable breast cancer probe published in JBO
Ph.D. student Sam Spink was the first author in our new paper which describes the design and performance of a new highly flexible wearable probe that uses near infrared light to probe breast tissue. Sam and the research team explored how paced (slow) breathing can be used to quantify the hemodynamic state of breast tissue, with the near future application of monitor breast tumors during chemotherapy. Thanks to the large and diverse team of engineers, physicists, and physicians for this one.
This paper is included in JBO's special series on WEARABLE, IMPLANTABLE, MOBILE, AND REMOTE BIOMEDICAL OPTICS AND PHOTONICS
Raeef Istfan Successfully Defends his Ph.D.
Long time BOTLab member (Raeef was the first employee of the BOTlab in 2012 before becoming a Ph.D. student) successfully defended his Ph.D. His thesis is entitled: "FREQUENCY-DOMAIN DIFFUSE OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPY FOR CARDIOVASCULAR AND RESPIRATORY APPLICATIONS"
Congratulations Raeef!!
Our study on optical scattering for chemo monitoring is published in Neoplasia
In this work we used SFDI to monitor optical scattering in prostate and breast animal tumor models. We found that the reduced scattering coefficient was strongly correlated with apoptosis, and the scattering power was strongly correlated with proliferation. This helped us track treatment response to cyclophosphamide and the antiangiogenic DC101. This work helps establish optical scattering as an important label-free optical marker of anti-cancer treatment response that can be used with other more common markers, such as oxygen saturation, hemoglobin levels, water, and lipids. It also helps make the case for frequency-domain and/or time-domain diffuse optical techniques such as SFDI, DOS, FD-NIRS, etc. which can quantify optical scattering in thick tissue.
paper here
Our study on quantitative SWIR imaging is published in Nature Communications
Very excited about this one.
Darren’s new perspective article on wearable and remote patient monitoring during COVID-19 and beyond
I recently published a JBO perspective on wearable and remote patient monitoring during COVID-19 and beyond. I cover new tech, regulatory, and commercial changes that have encouraged a push towards remote patient monitoring during COVID-19, with a focus on optical technologies.
Eric Lochridge at SPIE also did a nice write up summary of my piece for SPIE news.
NSF EPSCoR funded project with Karissa Tillbury at the University of Maine
Check out this recent post on Karissa Tillbury and her student Wyatt Austin, who spent a summer in our lab developing an SFDI system as part of their NSF EPSCoR Track 4 project: "Diffuse Optical Imaging for Early Detection of Diabetic Polyneuropathy".
Darren’s interview for the ACS Making National Strides Event
Darren gave an interview with the American Cancer Society to help support their Making Strides Event.
Senior Design team wins Outstanding Senior Design Award
Our 2019/2020 Senior Design team has won the: Outstanding Senior Design Projects in Biomedical Engineering Award for their project: "Wearable SWIR Optical Probe for Measuring Lipid and Water Composition of Peripheral Edema"
Scott Gaines (BME)
Minha Lee (BME)
Sarah Nemsick (BME)
Congratulations to Scott, Minha, and Sarah, as well as their BOTLab mentors Anahita Pilvar, Sam Spink, and Lina Lin.
Darren gives SPIE JBO Webcast on Wearables
JBO webinar: Wearable, Implantable, Mobile, and Remote Biomedical Optics & Photonics
Babak Shadgan, Jessica Ramella-Roman, and Darren Roblyer
Our wearable probe featured in a new photonics.com article
BOTLAB Ph.D. student Sam Spink was interviewed for this article on using diffuse optical spectroscopy for breast imaging.
Our new review on high speed diffuse optics published in AIP Photonics
Check out our new review on high speed diffuse optics in biomedicine.
Wearable probe project featured in the Boston Globe
Check out this article on the Boston Globe about the future of breast cancer treatment that features our wearable probe project.
Wearable probe project featured in ACS TheoryLab Podcast
The BOTLab's wearable probe project for breast cancer monitoring was recently featured in the American Cancer Society's TheoryLab podcast hosted by Susanna Greer. Check it out on soundcloud, or on on iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher, just look for the October 5, 2019 podcast!
openSFDI publication in the Journal of Biomedical Optics
We're excited to announce that openSFDI is now published! You can download and read the paper here.
The paper describes the design, construction, and testing of 3 different openSFDI systems. Please cite it if you publish work on your own versions of openSFDI.
Thanks to all the authors on the paper who made it possible, and all of the early adopters of openSFDI who helped make the project better during its beta phase.
Kavon Karrobi successfully defends his Ph.D.
Kavon is now headed to do a postdoc with Jonathan Liu at the University of Washington.
Congratulations Kavon, Great Job!
Syeda Tabbasum successfully defends her Ph.D.
Syeda is now headed for a postdoc with Jana Kainerstorfer at Carnegie Mellon
Congratulations Syeda, Great Job!
Hannah Peterson successfully defends her Ph.D. thesis
Hannah Peterson, Ph.D. successfully defended her thesis on April 4th. Her thesis title was: "CLINICAL FEASIBILITY OF DIFFUSE OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPIC IMAGING IN SARCOMA"
Congratulations Hannah, great job!
Yanyu Zhao wins BME best dissertation award
Yanyu, who recently defended his thesis: WIDEFIELD FUNCTIONAL AND METABOLIC IMAGING FROM 600 – 1300 NM IN THE SPATIAL FREQUENCY DOMAIN, recently won the best dissertation award for BME! Yanyu is currently doing a postdoc at Caltech in Lihong Wang's research group.
Postdoc Matthew Applegate Awarded F32 Fellowship from NIBIB
Postdoc Matthew Applegate was recently awarded an NIH F32 Fellowship form the NIBIB for his project: "Diffuse Optical B-scan Imaging (DOBI) for Breast Cancer Monitoring"
New York Times article discusses BOTLab research
Tech Reporter Janet Morrissey wrote a nice piece for the NYTs that included a discussion of the BOTLab's wearable chemotherapy monitoring probe:
Looking to Technology to Avoid Doctors’ Offices and Emergency Rooms
Boston Business Journal Article about BOTLab research
The Boston Business Journal published an article on BOTLab's wearable probe technology:
Life-saving snapshot: BU-developed device gives real-time data on tumors
BOTLab’s wearable probe featured in Reader’s Digest “Most Groundbreaking Cancer Research of 2017”
4th section in the article, entitled: "A Fitbit for cancer"
Darren Roblyer featured on YourHealthyLife Podcast
Darren Roblyer was interviewed about BOTLab research by Kim Carrigan for her YourHealthyLife Podcast (on iHeartRadio). note: you'll need to sign in or create an iHeartRadio account to listen
BOTLab receives B-BIC pilot grant for optical cardio-pulmonary monitoring
The BOSTON BIOMEDICAL INNOVATION CENTER has awarded the BOTLab a pilot grant to accelerate our ultra-fast frequency domain diffuse optical technology towards commercialization
BOTLab gets $240k from American Cancer Society (ACS)
The ACS has awarded the BOTLab a new Mission Boost grant to move our wearable breast cancer probe to the clinic.
See more about the Mission Boost Mechanism here:
https://www.cancer.org/research/we-fund-cancer-research/apply-research-grant/grant-types/mission-boost-grants.html
American Cancer Society publishes an article on our wearable tech
See this great article about our wearable tech on the ACS website
https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/new-device-aims-to-use-light-to-predict-how-well-chemotherapy-treats-breast-cancer.html
Fei Teng defends his Ph.D.
Fei Teng (ECE) successfully defended his Ph.D. on August 9th!
The BOTLab’s first Ph.D. student successfully defends
Yanyu Zhao successfully defended his Ph.D. on July 10. Congratulations to Yanyu! Yanyu is staying with the BOTLab as a postdoc in the near-term.
Ph.D. student Syeda Tabassum wins best-paper runner up at SPIE Photonics West
see the bottom of the page:
https://spie.org/PWB/conferencedetails/breast-and-reproductive-systems?SSO=1
Ph.D. student Hannah Peterson is awarded an F31 fellowship for her work in imaging pediatric sarcoma
Hannah has received 3 years of funding from the prestigious F31 mechanism for her project: "Clinical Feasibility of Chemotherapy Monitoring for Sarcoma with Diffuse Optical Spectroscopic Imaging"
Roblyer visits University of Sao Paulo, in Sao Carlos, Brazil
Professor Roblyer visited the University of Sao Paulo in Sao Carlos over spring break. He gave a seminar on BOTLab work, and got to learn all about the fabulous research in photodynamic therapy happening at the center. Thanks To Cristina Kurachi for hosting.
BOTlab research featured on Department of Defense (DOD) CDMRP website
Kavon Karrobi awarded a F99/K00 from the NCI
Botlab Ph.D. student Kavon Karrobi was recently awarded a prestigious F99/K00 from the NCI. This is a new mechanism that provides support for both Ph.D. work and a postdoctoral fellowship.
From the NCI:
The NCI Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition (F99/K00) Award supports outstanding Ph.D. and other Research Doctoral candidates complete their dissertation research training (F99 phase) and transition in a timely manner to mentored, cancer-focused postdoctoral career development research positions (K00 phase).
https://www.cancer.gov/grants-training/training/funding/f99
Roblyer wins Rice BIOE Outstanding Graduate Alumnus Award
New Book Chapter on Metabolic Imaging
I was proud to work with colleagues Jonathan Liu, Ricky Wang, and Melissa Skala on this new book chapter on Imaging Metabolism:
M Wall, T Heaster, K Tilbury, WJ Choi, Darren Roblyer, R Wang, M Skala, J.T.C. Liu, “Chapter 5: Metabolic Imaging Approaches: Optical Imaging”, Imaging and Metabolism, Jason S. Lewis and Kayvan R. Keshari (Editors), Springer Nature, in production
AACR 2017 Washington D.C.
Ph.D. student Hannah Peterson presented a poster on our Osteosarcoma work at AACR 2017:
HM Peterson, BH Hoang, D Geller, R Gorlick, R Yang, J Berger, J Tingling, M Roth, J Gill, Darren Roblyer, “Clinical Feasibility of Chemotherapy Monitoring for Bone Sarcoma Patients with Diffuse Optical Spectroscopic Imaging ”, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., April 2017, poster presentation
ECI 2017 Snowmass
The BOTLab had two poster presentations at ECI Snowmass 2017:
M Applegate, Darren Roblyer, “High-speed Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI) with temporally modulated light.”, ECI Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine, and Surgery XV, Snowmass, Colorado, July 2017, poster presentation, poster prize: 3rd place
V Pera, K Karrobi, S Tabassum, Darren Roblyer, “Exploiting diffuse reflectance measurement uncertainty estimates in spatial frequency domain imaging.”, ECI Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine, and Surgery XV, Snowmass, Colorado, July 2017, poster presentation
New JBO paper on Time Modulated SFDI
New BOTLab Papers
We've published a number of papers in the last few months, here's the list:
Our new JBO paper on ultrafast optical property extractions in tissue, link here
A. Torjesen, R Istfan, Darren Roblyer, “Ultrafast wavelength multiplexed broad bandwidth digital diffuse optical spectroscopy for in vivo extraction of tissue optical properties,” Journal of Biomedical Optics, 22(3), 036009 (2017)
Our new JBO paper on a wearable probe for cancer treatment monitoring, link here
F Teng, T Cormier, A Sauer-Budge, R Chaudhury, V Pera, D Chargin, S Brookfield, N Yu Ko, Darren Roblyer, “Wearable near-infrared optical probe for continuous monitoring during breast cancer neoadjuvant chemotherapy infusions,” Journal of Biomedical Optics, 22(1), 014001 (Jan 13, 2017)
Our new BOE paper on using SFDI for preclinical cancer imaging, link here
S Tabassum, Y Zhao, R Istfan, J Wu, DJ Waxman, Darren Roblyer, “Feasibility of spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) for optically characterizing a preclinical oncology model,” Biomedical Optics Express 7(10), 4154-4170 (2016)
Cancer Research paper on the multi-site DOSI trial, link here
B Tromberg, Z Zhang, A Leproux, TD. O’Sullivan, A Cerussi, P Carpenter, R Mehta, Darren Roblyer, W Yang , KD Paulsen, BW Pogue, S Jiang, P Kaufman, A Yodh, S Chung, M Schnall, B Snyder, N Hylton, D Boas, S Carp, S Isakoff, D Mankoff, “Predicting Responses to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Breast Cancer: ACRIN 6691 Trial of Diffuse Optical Spectroscopic Imaging (DOSI),” Cancer Research, 2016
Our BOE paper on improving SFDI angle correction, link here
Y Zhao, S Tabassum, S Piracha, M Sobhana Nandhu, M Viapiano, and Darren Roblyer, "Angle correction for small animal tumor imaging with spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI)," Biomedical Optics Express 7(6), 2373-2384 (2016)
BOTLab presents at SPIE Photonics West 2017
The BOTLab has three oral presentations this year at SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco:
- Darren Roblyer, Alyssa Torjesen, Raeef Istfan, Rachita Chaudhury, “Ultra-fast frequency domain Diffuse Optical Spectroscopy using miniaturized sources and detectors towards quantitative wearables”, SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, California, February 2016, invited oral presentation
- Darren Roblyer, Syeda Tabassum, Junjie Wu, David J. Waxman, “Spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) as a new tool for monitoring chemotherapy response and resistance”, SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, California, February 2016, invited oral presentation
- Yanyu Zhao, Kavon Karrobi, John P. Dumas, Mark C. Pierce, Darren Roblyer, “Hyperspectral spatial frequency domain imaging from 680-1,300 nm for improved estimation of tissue water and lipid concentrations”, SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, California, February 2016, oral presentation
Congratulations to Rachita Chaudhury for her new UROP award
Rachita was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) award to work on a frequency-domain wearable probe this semester.
BOTLab is Awarded St. Baldrick’s Grant for Pediatric Sarcoma
We were recently awarded a new grant to explore pediatric sarcoma using Diffuse Optics from the St. Baldrick's Foundation.
BOTLab senior design group get 3rd place in ENG at BU
The BOTLab's 2016 senior design team: Jordan Sweer, Sanjana Pannem, and Alexandra Tracey tied for 3rd place for the Societal Impact Award for their project: "A Wearable Frequency Domain Optical Probe for Real-time Monitoring of Chemotherapy Treatment". The award was chosen among all engineering senior design groups at BU.