Summer Academy

Join the SAOT Summer Academy 2026! 🌞

  • Where? Dresden, Penck Hotel
  • When? July 6th – 10th, 2026
    (6th July leaving early till 10th July arriving evening)

Choose one of the following courses:

  • Course A: Tissue optics and translational optical imaging: from photons to patients
    Course leader: Alba Alfonso García (Young Researcher Award Winner 2025)
  • Course B: Application of Dynamic Light Scattering in Biomedical Systems
    Course leader: Andreas Fröba

See below for detailed course descriptions.

Registration
Please kindly confirm your registration until 29th May 2026 below.
This is a binding reservation, accommodation will be booked for you. You are liable to cover the costs if you do not attend.

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Course Details

  • Course A: Tissue optics and translational optical imaging: from photons to patients
    Course leader: Alba Alfonso García (Young Researcher Award Winner 2025)
    Advanced light-based applications laboratory, University of California, Davis, USA

    Tissue optics and translational biophotonics encompass the application of optical technologies to investigate, diagnose, and guide the treatment of disease in biological tissues. By exploiting the interactions of light with complex and heterogeneous tissue environments, these approaches provide structural, functional, and metabolic information that is highly relevant to both biomedical research and clinical practice. Multiple optical contrast mechanisms, including absorption, scattering, and fluorescence, can be utilized to probe tissue composition and physiology across a wide range of spatial scales. Established modalities such as fluorescence microscopy and endoscopic imaging are already integral to clinical workflows, while emerging label-free and multimodal approaches seek to provide real-time biochemical insight without the need for exogenous contrast agents or extensive tissue preparation. This course introduces the fundamental principles of tissue optics and their translation into biomedical applications, with particular emphasis on clinically relevant imaging systems and the challenges associated with their implementation in translational settings. Topics include light propagation in tissue, optical contrast mechanisms, and practical clinical applications of label-free fluorescence lifetime imaging and Raman spectroscopy for optical diagnostics.

  • Course B: Application of Dynamic Light Scattering in Biomedical Systems
    Course leader: Andreas Fröba
    Institute of Advanced Optical Technologies – Thermophysical Properties (AOT-TP), FAU

    Dynamic light scattering (DLS) represents a non-invasive technique for studying the size and shape of particles and macromolecules in solution. It has long been an indispensable tool to the polymer physical chemist, and is seeing increased use in exploring properties of biological macromolecules, alone and in association with solvent. Nowadays, beside aerosols and colloidal dispersions, the application of DLS can be found for solutions and dispersions of biological macromolecules and systems including viruses, protein-complexes, and membrane vesicles. At first, the course gives an introduction into the methodological principles of DLS and its experimental realization. After this, different applications of DLS in biomedical systems are discussed and reviewed. These range from quality control of blood platelet transfusions to the early detection of cataracts.