Biological Imaging Technology

3 units

This class will develop a fundamental understanding of the physics and mathematical methods that underlie biological imaging and critically examine case studies of seminal biological imaging technology literature. The physics section will examine how electromagnetic and acoustic waves interact with tissues and cells, how waves can be used to image the biological structure and function, image formation methods and diffraction limited imaging. The math section will examine image decomposition using basis functions (e.g. Fourier transforms), synthesis of measurement data, image analysis for feature extraction, reduction of multi-dimensional imaging datasets, multivariate regression, and statistical image analysis. Original literature on electron, confocal and two photon microscopy, ultrasound, computed tomography, functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging and other emerging imaging technology will be critiqued.