Tutorial 3

Optoacoustic imaging

The field of biological optoacoustic imaging is developing tremendously with new technical approaches and applications continuously emerging. It is even argued that optoacoustics has in fact become the fastest growing bio-imaging modality. Indeed, this technology combines highly attractive features, including rich contrast and high versatility in sensing diverse biological targets, excellent spatial resolution not compromised by light scattering, and relatively low cost of implementation. Yet, living objects present a complex target for optoacoustic imaging due to the presence of a highly heterogeneous tissue background in the form of strong spatial variations of scattering and absorption. Extracting quantified information on the actual distribution of tissue chromophores and other biomarkers constitutes therefore a challenging problem. Image quantification is further compromised by some frequently-used approximated inversion formulae. This tutorial covers the emerging topic of optoacoustic imaging from the image reconstruction and quantification perspective, including back-projection and model-based inversion algorithms, sparse signal representation, wavelet-based approaches, methods for reduction of acoustic artifacts as well as multi-spectral methods for visualization of tissue bio-markers. Applicability of the different methodologies is further analyzed in the context of real-life performance in small animal and clinical in-vivo imaging scenarios.

Contact information

Prof. Daniel Razansky
Director, Laboratory for Optoacoustics and Molecular Imaging Engineering
Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Center Munich
Ingolstaedter Landstr. 1, D-85764 Neuherberg, Germany
E-mail: dr@tum.de

About the instructor

Daniel_RazanskyDaniel Razansky earned his degrees in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology and was further trained in bio-imaging at the Harvard Medical School. Since 2007 he is the Director of the Lab for Optoacoustics at the Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging (IBMI), Helmholtz Center Munich, Germany and is also a Professor of Molecular Imaging Engineering at the Technical University of Munich. His research lies at the forefront of the rapidly evolving area of molecular imaging sciences. As opposed to traditional anatomical imaging approaches, this multidisciplinary field aims at early diagnosis and improved classification of tissue function and stage of disease with highly potent applications in areas such as neuroscience, cancer research, and cardiovascular diagnostics. The particular focus is on the development of novel biomedical imaging tools based on optoacoustics, diffuse optics, ultrasound, and multi-modality approaches in order to enable imaging with high spatial and temporal resolution on different scales, from organ to cell. Prof. Razansky has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and holds 12 inventions in bio-imaging and bio-sensing disciplines. He is recipient of a number of prices and awards, among them the Biovaria spin-off Award, ERC starting grant, and has been selected on the “Young Elite: Top 40 scientists under 40″ list by the Capital magazine in 2011 and 2012.