Understanding biological processes in their native environment requires imaging approaches that combine depth, resolution, speed, and minimal perturbation. Our group develops advanced optical technologies that extend the reach of light microscopy into intact and highly scattering tissues, drawing from multiphoton and light-sheet microscopy, wavefront shaping, photoacoustics, and high-resolution spectroscopy. A major focus is on deep brain imaging using three-photon excitation in combination with adaptive optics. This strategy mitigates both tissue scattering and sample-induced aberrations, enabling near diffraction-limited resolution at depths exceeding one millimeter in the living mouse brain. These advances allow us to visualize fine subcellular structures, such as dendritic spines, and to follow their dynamics in healthy and diseased states, including tumor progression in vivo. Complementing this, we develop label-free structural imaging modalities, including Optical Coherence Microscopy — a fast, volumetric approach we have applied to a range of organisms from aquatic invertebrates to developing embryos. We are also pioneering Brillouin microscopy, an emerging technique that maps the viscoelastic properties of cells and tissues in three dimensions at subcellular resolution by exploiting the interaction of light with thermally generated acoustic waves. Together, these approaches offer a powerful and complementary window into the structural, functional, and mechanical dimensions of life in context. In this talk, I will present our latest results and discuss how our approaches open new opportunities across neuroscience, development, and disease biology.
Advancing microscopy to explore life in context
