Bio Photonics Research

  DAEJEON, South Korea,— Researchers at KAIST and UNIST developed an implantable, shape-morphing 3D  micro-LED  device capable of effectively delivering light to deep tissues. The technology, designed for pancreatic cancer treatments, has a flexible, octopus-inspired architecture, allowing it to wrap around the entire pancreatic tumor. The device delivers light to the tumor, despite the tumor’s physiological expansion or contraction, enabling continuous, low-intensity photostimulation that precisely targets cancer cells while preserving normal tissue. Traditional pancreatic cancer treatments struggle due to the dense tumor microenvironment. This biological barrier surrounds the tumor, severely impeding the infiltration of chemotherapy agents and immune cells. While  photodynamic therapy  has offered a promising alternative, existing internal light sources, such as lasers, fail to penetrate deep tissues effectively and pose risks of thermal damage and inflammatio...

  GLASGOW, Scotland, Jan. 21, 2026 — Using consumer-grade 3D printers, researchers at the University of Strathclyde produced high-quality, low-cost optical lenses for  superresolution   microscopy . When they compared the performance of the 3D-printed  optics  with that of commercial lenses, the results were similar. The ability to 3D-print high-grade optics could make high-resolution microscopy and other optical applications more accessible to individual scientists and scientific organizations. It could also provide an inexpensive way to develop fully customized optical imaging systems for research and industry. In earlier work, the researchers fabricated a fully 3D-printed microscope using a consumer-grade printer. In their current work, they focused on the design and manufacture of a custom, 3D-printed hexagonal (i.e., honeycomb) lenslet array and the integration of this optic into a small, custom, multifocal  structured illumination microscopy  sys...

Tucked away on a service road between the edge of Vanderbilt’s main campus and  Vanderbilt University Medical Center  sits a brick building so intentionally nondescript, other than its tall façade of darkened glass, that it practically screams “mystery” to casual passersby. The intrigue only deepens as you read the sign outside: “W.M. Keck Free Electron Laser (FEL) Center.” Despite the foreboding exterior, inside is a state-of-the-art laser laboratory that serves as a kind of hub of cross-disciplinary research at Vanderbilt. Forty faculty members from across the university and VUMC—working on topics ranging from astrophysics to cancer treatments—have an affiliation with what is now known as the  Biophotonics Center . Led by  Anita Mahadevan-Jansen , the Orrin H. Ingram Professor of Biomedical Engineering and professor of neurological surgery, the center also provides undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on experience at one of the world’s leading optics fac...

The researchers found that 670 nm red light stimulated energy production within mitochondria, the tiny powerhouses within cells, leading to increased consumption of glucose. In particular, it led to a 27.7% reduction in blood glucose levels following glucose intake, and it reduced maximum glucose spiking by 7.5%. While the study was conducted in healthy individuals, the non-invasive, non-pharmacological technique has the potential to have an impact on diabetes control after meals, as it can reduce damaging fluctuations of blood glucose in the body that contribute to ageing. The study also highlights the significant long-term consequences for human health, including the potential dysregulation of blood sugars posed by lengthy exposure to blue light. Given the prominence of LED lighting in modern technology and environments, and the fact that LEDs emit towards the blue end of the spectrum with very little red, the authors suggest that this may be a potential public health issue. The res...

  Biophotonics Market Size The global biophotonics market size was valued at USD 76.1 billion in 2024 and is estimated to grow at CAGR of 11.3% to reach USD 220.1 billion by 2034. Rising technological innovation in the medical sector coupled with the rapid emergence of nanotechnology are the major factors contributing to the growth of the market. As nanotechnology enables unprecedented control over light-matter interactions at the nanoscale, which helps in improving the performance of diagnostic and therapeutic tools its rapid emergence is the key factor driving the biophotonic market. For instance, according to GMI analysis the  global nanotechnology in medical devices market  size was valued at USD 4.7 billion in 2024 and is expected grow at a CAGR of 9.2% from 2025 to 2034. By employing nanomaterials including metallic nanoparticles and quantum dots, biophotonic devices enable higher sensitivity and specificity for sensing biomarkers as well as for tissue imaging. All...

When integrating an  optical filter  into the design of an optical system, it is vital to understand the  angle of incidence  (AOI) and cone half angle (CHA) requirements on the filters to optimize functionality for a wide variety of life sciences and biomedical research applications. The larger the deviation from the designed AOI, the greater the peak wavelength shift and the overall transmission drop. Increasing the AOI blue shifts the transmission peak toward shorter wavelengths, while reducing the AOI red shifts the transmission peak toward longer wavelengths. In wavelength-dependent application spaces, such as  fluorescence spectroscopy   and nuclear magnetic resonance, a misaligned filter with too much red/blue shift would be severely detrimental to experimental results or device readings. The larger the CHA of the incoming light, the greater the loss in peak transmission and the greater the peak broadening, which can allow unwanted wavelengths adjace...

  The rapid development of biophotonics and biomedical sciences makes a high demand on photonic structures to be interfaced with biological systems that are capable of manipulating light at small scales for sensitive detection of biological signals and precise imaging of cellular structures. However, conventional photonic structures based on artificial materials (either inorganic or toxic organic) inevitably show incompatibility and invasiveness when interfacing with biological systems. The design of biophotonic probes from the abundant natural materials, particularly biological entities such as virus, cells and tissues, with the capability of multifunctional light manipulation at target sites greatly increases the biocompatibility and minimizes the invasiveness to biological microenvironment . In this review, advances in biophotonic probes for bio-detection and imaging are reviewed. We emphatically and systematically describe biological entities-based photonic probes that offer ...