The study of diffuse light spectroscopy and imaging in tissue continues to provide new insight into the structural and functional properties of tissues that are not easily accessed by alternative methods. The research and development of systems that exploit this approach has led to clinical prototype systems that are used in basic studies and medical research. Scientific applications range from the study of cerebral physiology to cancer patho-physiology in both animals and humans. Medical applications being explored encompass detection and diagnosis of breast cancer, brain cancer, cognitive neuroscience, stroke, hemorrhages, brain and muscular oxygenation, peripheral vascular diseases and joint diseases as well as establishing novel methods in drug discovery and tracking. Integration of diffuse light spectroscopy and imaging into existing clinical instrumentation is a key area of development, and combining diffuse light with new contrast agents or other imaging modalities are also emerging as major growth areas.

Further improvement in these and other application areas relies on continued advancement in the theory of radiation transport through random media, in data analysis and image reconstruction algorithms, and in instrumentation design.

This meeting provides a key interdisciplinary forum for engineers, physicists, mathematicians, biomedical scientists and physicians to report on recent results, improvements, and new approaches and applications for using diffusing light to characterize the structural and functional properties of tissue.