The Berns-SPIE SPARK Grants are a partnership between SPIE and the Beckman Laser Institute (BLI) to honor former Beckman Laser Institute founder, chairman and CEO Michael W. Berns, who passed away in 2022. Michael was the 2022 winner of the SPIE Gold Medal, the Society’s highest honor, and a professor of surgery and cell biology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). In addition to founding BLI, he founded the first Laser Microbeam Program, the UCI Center for Biomedical Engineering, and the UCI Photonics Incubator. Berns applied his research across a variety of illnesses including skin disorders, vascular and eye diseases, and cancer.
Four recipients were selected for Berns-SPIE SPARK Grants in Fall 2024. Find their full recipient profiles here.
This research addresses the critical challenge of diagnosing and monitoring Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) in intensive care. Photoacoustic Imaging of Lung Injury (PILI) is poised to provide real-time, non-invasive, and radiation-free assessment of lung injuries, offering insights into the structural and functional changes in ARDS. The project aims to establish PILI as a crucial tool for ICU diagnostics, potentially transforming the management of ARDS by enhancing early detection, treatment monitoring, and patient outcomes.
This research seeks to use a non-invasive optical tool based on Raman Spectroscopy (RS) to track and treat pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Its goal is to develop an optimized depth-sensitive side-viewing RS probe to examine the make-up and quality of pelvic floor tissue quickly and painlessly. This tool could be used during annual well-woman exams to help predict which women will develop POP and to help guide doctors on the best treatment for each patient, before costly and invasive (and often ineffective) surgeries are needed.
This research focuses on improving the chance of a baby being born following in vitro fertilization (IVF) by accurately and objectively diagnosing embryo quality with the first-ever multimodal microscope capable of simultaneously capturing both molecular and morphological information in a single instrument. This safe diagnostic process of embryo quality will ultimately improve IVF success, and utilization of this new instrument could have implications that extend beyond IVF to other fields of research and medicine.
The ProMis project aims to develop a photonics biosensing platform for misfolded protein analysis, based on waveguide-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, to detect early biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease. Through its waveguide design, single-step fabrication, validation of nanomolar sensitivity and time-resolved monitoring of protein aggregation, this work will result in a novel platform for early-stage Alzheimer's diagnosis.
The Berns-SPIE SPARK Grants are intended to support young research scientists – either postdocs or faculty – who are using lasers and other optically based systems to study basic cell processes or to develop technologies to diagnose and/or treat diseases in an innovative way that could have a major impact on the field of biophotonics.
Grants will be awarded between $50,000 and $100,000 and may be used for one or two years at the discretion of the review committee.
Applicants must be either a postdoctoral researcher or within their first two years as faculty.
Each proposal must be no more than five pages (12pt font, single-spaced) excluding bibliography, figures, and budget.
The sections must be:
The application closed at 5:00 PM (Pacific Time) on Friday, 14 June 2024. Thank you to all who submitted grant applications.
Please email outreach@spie.org with any questions.