Fast Infrared Coherent Harmonic Microscopy

The emergence of innovative research avenues in biomedicine in the last decades (cell therapy, cancer immunotherapy, bio-nanotechnology) has led to many proof-of-principle demonstrations fostering the hope for new therapeutic strategies for diseases. However, the translation from a laboratory bench into clinical practice has often proven unproductive.

One of the reasons for this failure in translation is in the absence of imaging instruments capable of encompassing both the subcellular length-scale, where pathogenic disorders are set in, and that of tissues with differentiated cell types required to organize spatial and temporal functionality.

An instrument enabling translation should allow resolving three-dimensional features within this large spatial range and operating with the same physical observables at each length scale, also enabling millisecond temporal resolution to monitor relevant processes.

These requirements are essential to elucidate the hierarchical and temporal connections between micro and macro structures and events. Multiphoton microscopy has a yet undiscovered potential to fulfill these needs.

FAIR CHARM aims at bringing this technique to its full capacity by i) providing access to millimetre imaging depths by building a microscope (SWIM) with excitation in the Short-Wave Infrared Region relying on new laser sources, optimized optics, and ad hoc labelling probes; ii) enabling unprecedented acquisition frame-rates (kHz/s) by the Spectro-temporal Laser Imaging by Diffracted Excitation (SLIDE) approach; iii) adapting Deep Learning recognition algorithms to multiphoton observables.

The consortium features photonics innovators, worldwide renown enterprises in laser technology and microscopy, and clinical and biomedical end-users selected within the oncology/immunology, regenerative medicine, and neural signalling fields to provide the scientific push and timely feedback during the development of the final devices: SWIM and SLIDE.