Aydogan Ozcan, Chancellor’s Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, recently delivered the Ernst Abbe Lecture at the International Conference on Applied Optics and Photonics in Hanover, Germany.
The conference was co-sponsored by the International Commission for Optics (ICO) and the German Society of Applied Optics. Ozcan received the ICO Prize, the Commission's highest honor. He was also honored with the Ernst Abbe Trophy from the Carl Zeiss Foundation for his seminal contributions to bio- and nano-photonics technologies impacting computational microscopy and digital holography for telemedicine and global health applications. Ernst Abbe (1840-1905) was a German scientist who pioneered optical microscopy and is considered one of the founders of modern optics and microscopic imaging systems.
Ozcan, who joined the UCLA faculty in 2007, has developed a range of high-throughput computational photonics tools for use in imaging, metrology, telemedicine and other biomedical applications. Devices and techniques pioneered in his lab include computational on-chip microscopy platforms that can image single nanoparticles and viruses over large sample areas and detect cancer and other abnormalities at the single-cell level; and lightweight, 3-D-printed smartphone attachments that can diagnose diseases and sense pathogens. These devices are portable and cost-effective, making them practical for use in telemedicine as well as environmental monitoring in rural and resource-poor areas.