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  • Review Article
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Label-free biomedical optical imaging

Nature Photonics volume 17, pages 1031–1041 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Label-free optical imaging employs natural and non-destructive approaches to visualize biomedical samples for both biological assays and clinical diagnosis. At present, this field revolves around multiple technology-oriented communities, each with a specific focus on a particular modality, despite the existence of shared challenges and applications. As a result, biologists or clinical researchers who require label-free imaging are often not aware of the most appropriate modality to use. This Review presents a comprehensive overview of, and comparison among, different label-free imaging modalities and discusses common challenges and applications. We expect this Review to facilitate collaborative interactions between imaging communities, push the field forwards and foster technological advancements and biophysical discoveries, as well as facilitate new avenues in clinical detection, diagnosis and monitoring of diseases.

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Fig. 1: Comparison of imaging methods of human sperm cells.
Fig. 2: Label-free OCT applications.
Fig. 3: Image atlas obtained by SLAM.
Fig. 4: Single-shot label-free multimodal nonlinear imaging.
Fig. 5: Multiscale label-free photoacoustic imaging of molecular absorption.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the following grants: Horizon2020 ERC grant (678316) (PI: N.T.S.). NIH Center for Label-free Imaging and Multiscale Biophotonics (CLIMB) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (http://climb.beckman.illinois.edu) P41 EB031772 and NIH grant numbers R01 CA241618 and R01 CA213149 (PI: S.A.B.). NIH grant numbers R01 NS102213, U01 EB029823 (BRAIN Initiative), R35 CA220436 (Outstanding Investigator Award), and R01 EB028277 (PI: L.V.W.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Natan T. Shaked

  2. Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Stephen A. Boppart

  3. Caltech Optical Imaging Laboratory, Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Lihong V. Wang

  4. Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Member of Leibniz Health Technologies, Member of the Leibniz Centre for Photonics in Infection Research, Jena, Germany

    Jürgen Popp

  5. Institute of Physical Chemistry and Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany

    Jürgen Popp

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Shaked, N.T., Boppart, S.A., Wang, L.V. et al. Label-free biomedical optical imaging. Nat. Photon. 17, 1031–1041 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01299-6

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