Funding backs four-university research effort to solve perennial issue of light scattering

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 24, 2025 — A multidisciplinary research team led by the University of California, Irvine has been awarded a prestigious $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health Common Fund’s Venture Program to develop a revolutionary optical imaging system capable of seeing deep inside living tissues with unprecedented resolution and speed.

The award is part of the NIH’s new Advancing Non-Invasive Optical Imaging Approaches for Biological Systems initiative, which seeks to overcome the longstanding physical barrier of light scattering – where light bounces off tiny particles in tissue, resulting in blurry, unclear images. UC Irvine is one of only four institutions nationwide to receive this highly competitive funding, which supports groundbreaking, high-impact research aimed at solving critical biomedical challenges.

The UC Irvine-led project, titled “Breaking the Scattering Barrier: Multimodal Non-Invasive Deep Tissue Imaging Using Reflection Matrix-Based Wavefront Shaping,” will receive $1.5 million annually for two years. There’s also the possibility of a third-year extension, dependent upon the achievement of specific milestones. This groundbreaking technology the team is developing has the potential to revolutionize real-time, noninvasive visualization of dynamic biological processes, with wide-ranging applications in neuroscience, cancer research and cardiovascular disease.

“This award from the NIH is a powerful validation of the transformative science happening at UC Irvine,” said Aileen Anderson, the university’s vice chancellor for research. “It recognizes our researchers’ commitment to pioneering technologies that can rapidly transition from the lab to real-world health applications. We are incredibly proud to be at the forefront of this national initiative.”

The project’s principal investigator is Zhongping Chen, UC Irvine professor of biomedical engineering. He is joined by Fei Xia, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Irvine, Song Hu of Washington University in St. Louis, and Guifang Li of the University of Central Florida.

“For decades, the scattering of light has been a fundamental barrier to seeing deep into living tissue with clarity,” Chen said. “Our goal is to break through this barrier. We are developing a fast, advanced imaging system that uses innovative light techniques to see deep inside the body in clear detail, in real time. This will allow scientists to study how the brain functions, how tumors grow and how the cardiovascular system behaves in ways that were previously impossible, dramatically accelerating the development of new therapies.”

The NIH Common Fund’s Venture Program is designed to catalyze rapid, innovative scientific discovery. The Advancing Non-Invasive Optical Imaging Approaches for Biological Systems initiative is a collaborative effort of the Common Fund, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. In total, NIH will fund approximately $14.7 million in research across the four participating institutions.

The award was made possible, in part, by seed funding from the UC Irvine Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, which provided critical early support for the project’s development.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu.

About the NIH Common Fund: The NIH Common Fund encourages collaboration and supports a series of exceptionally high-impact, trans-NIH programs. These are managed by the Office of Strategic Coordination in the Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives within the NIH Office of the Director. More information is available at https://commonfund.nih.gov.

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus studio with a Comrex IP audio codec to interview UC Irvine faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UC Irvine news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at https://news.uci.edu/media-resources.

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Author: Gabrielle Comfort