Date: 22 October
Time: 4 p.m.
Venue: Great Hall, Técnico – Alameda Campus

«Prof. Brian W. Pogue (Dartmouth College, USA) will be the speaker at the next IST Distinguished Lecture, entitled “Biomedical Optics & the Value of Quantum Level Imaging in Medicine”, to be held on 22 October 2026 at 16h, co-organised by the Department of Physics, the Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics (LIP) and RTBEAMTECH, a spin-off of Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa.

Abstract:

Optics is the single largest technology sector in medicine today, with successes broadly across nearly all medical specialties, especially in point-of-care, homecare and as diagnostic detector components. Advances in camera technology have had an enormous influence, especially in areas such as robotic surgery, advanced displays, and molecular sensing. Quantum-level sensors that read out single-photon events per pixel have transformed x-ray imaging and radiation Cherenkov imaging, and have important value for features such as depth sensing or lifetime-based imaging. The example of developing Cherenkov imaging to visualise radiation dose in humans undergoing radiotherapy will be reviewed, with technical innovations, entrepreneurial development into a successful medical device, and future prospects for advancement.

Biography:

Brian W. Pogue is the Robert A. Pritzker Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. He earned a PhD in Medical/Nuclear Physics from McMaster University, Canada, and completed a Research Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Joining Dartmouth in 1996, he served as Director of Engineering Graduate Studies (2006–2008 and 2014–2018), Dean of Graduate Studies at Dartmouth (2008–2012), and co-founded the Center for Imaging Medicine. He was Chair of the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2022–2025).

Prof. Pogue’s research programme centres on creating unique optical tools for advanced surgery and radiation therapy guidance, photodynamic therapy, molecular imaging and theranostics. He has published over 600 peer-reviewed papers, secured more than $52 million in NIH funding, and translated fundamentally new imaging technologies into numerous human clinical trials. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biomedical Optics (2018–2023) and is a Fellow of AIMBE, Optica, SPIE, AAPM and the National Academy of Inventors. His entrepreneurial ventures include founding three successful startup companies, including DoseOptics LLC, creator of the world’s first real-time radiotherapy dose imaging camera, and Hypoxia Surgical LLC.»