By Lori, Brandt, UCI Samueli School of Engineering

March 7, 2024 – Zhongping Chen is being recognized for his pioneering research in biophotonics with the 2024 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award from Optica. Chen, a professor in biomedical engineering, will receive the medal at the Frontiers in Optics/Laser Science annual conference in September in Denver, Colorado.

Chen’s research integrates fundamental discoveries, technological development, biomedical studies and clinical applications. He has made groundbreaking contributions to the development of Doppler optical coherence tomography (D-OCT) and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). The phase-resolved D-OCT and Doppler variance imaging developed by Chen’s group have been widely used as powerful research tools for imaging and quantifying vascular changes in neuroscience and cancer research.

The D-OCT and OCTA  have been translated to clinical applications in ophthalmology and have had significant impacts on the diagnosis and management of retinal diseases such as glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. His group is also credited with the development of a multimodal intravascular imaging platform that integrates OCT with ultrasound. Chen has applied numerous optical imaging technologies for clinical uses including imaging and diagnosis of laryngeal cancer and neonatal subglottic stenosis, airway injury and lung cancer, oral cancers, obstructive sleep apnea, ocular diseases, cardiovascular diseases and brain aneurysms.

Chen has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and review articles and holds over 25 patents in the fields of biomaterials, biosensors and biomedical imaging. He is a fellow of Optica, the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, and SPIE.

“I am humbled and honored to receive this award from Optica,” said Chen “I would like to thank my former and current students, postdoctoral fellows and collaborators whose dedication and hard work made this achievement possible.”

Established in 2012, the Feld Biophotonics Award recognizes innovative and influential contributions to the field of biophotonics, regardless of career stage. It honors Michael Feld for his fundamental contributions to applications of photonics technologies to solving biomedical problems, and is endowed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Coherent Inc., David Feld, Ramachandra Dasari, Adam Wax, Kyungwon An, Robert Gold, Charles Holbrow, Firooz Partovi, Manoharan Ramasamy, Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Guillermo Tearney.

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