FALL/WINTER 2006
From the Director
Dear Reader:
Concurrent with this issue of the CBST Newsletter, we are celebrating the success of our Renewal Site Visit by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This has led to the approval of our 2nd five-year funding cycle as an official NSF Science & Technology Center. We are also accelerating efforts for post-NSF funding through business development and publicprivate partnerships and we are looking forward to new efforts in this area.
Center Selects the 2007-2009 Portolio of Scientific Projects C B S T announces its new portfolio of research projects for the 2007-2009 funding cycle. The Center selected an integrated set of projects that continue both our Center defined R&D projects and the development of core biophotonics capabilities at the Oak Park Research Facility (pictured below) and elsewhere. We are also launching a new category of collaborator defined applications in biological research and clinical medicine. This new category combines CBST Biophotonics capabilities and expertise with clinical research to solve important problems in particular areas of medicine. Similar to previous years, all projects fall within three theme areas: Advanced Imaging and Spectroscopy, Molecular and Cellular Biophotonics, and Medical Devices, Sensors, and Assays (see chart next page.) Center defined R&D projects aim to develop new Biophotonic technologies of interest to CBST and apply these technologies to research challenges in the life sciences and medicine. In the Advanced Imaging and Spectroscopy theme area, CBST plans to continue research on single molecule coherent diffraction imaging, a scheme that will ultimately lead to structure determinations of single proteins without the difficult step of first producing high-quality crystals. Another project in this theme area is the application of adaptive optics to cellular microscopy, a project jointly funded with the NSF Center for Adaptive Optics. The theme area of cellular and molecular biophotonics includes investigations of phytochrome-based fluorescent proteins, telomerase structure and function, and biomembrane architecture and physiology. In the third theme area in medical devices, sensors and assays, CBST is supporting the development of light-activated shapememory polymer foams to treat lifethreatening aneurysms, and ultra-sensitive surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)based assays (with additional support expected from LLNL and BioRad, Inc). In addition there is a project to develop a sensitive bioluminescent protease assay sensitive bioluminescent protease assay capable of detecting these enzymes, that are associated various diseases, in a format suitable for point-of-care or field applications. And there is a project (cofunded by LLNL) to apply advanced microendoscopes to a range of medical applications. In the category of core biophotonics capabilities, CBST is planning to support the development of several unique instruments: 1) a commercial version of the OMX structured-illumination microscope with an industrial partner, Applied Precision (Seattle). This effort will also be funded through an NSF major research instrumentation grant awarded to CBST, 2) microscopes using non-linear processes such as a ratiometric coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy will be used for label-less real-time cellular imaging, 3) a combined inverted-upright a multi-photon microscope for tissue and animal imaging, and 4) a Raman flow cytometer for sorting cells based on their biochemical constituents. Collaborator defined applications support projects in the area of neurological disease, cancer, regenerative medicine, vascular medicine, and infectious disease. In the area of neuroscience and neurological disease, here CBST has projects to image and detect proteins related to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, study the integrity of the blood-brain barrier following a traumatic brain injury, and to perform Raman spectroscopy through the eye as a way of studying certain eye-related disease processes (a project co-funded by CfAO).

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