Biophotonics, defined as the interface of photonics or light wave technology and the biological sciences, offers tremendous prospects for optical diagnostics as well as for light activated therapy, surgery, biosensing and restoration of biological functions. Nanomedicine and nanobioengineering fuse nanotechnology with medicine and bioengineering. They are emerging new frontiers, providing challenges for fundamental research and opportunities for revolutionary advance in medical technology. Biophotonics, together with Nanobioengineering and Nanomedicine, provides a global vision to produce breakthrough approaches for meeting our current and future healthcare needs. This course provides an integrated description of biophotonics, nanomedicine and nanobioengineering for next-generation diagnostics and therapy, collectively called thermanostics. It presents a basic introduction to a broad range of topics in an integrated manner, so that individuals in all disciplines can rapidly acquire the background needed for research and development in this field. The course covers the fundamentals of photobiology, bioimaging and sensing, light-activated therapy, bioengineering, nanodiagnostics, and nanotherapy.

This course introduces the basic principles of photon upconversion and the current state of upconversion nanomaterials. It will focus on rare-earth doped nanophosphors as well as on their emerging applications. We will describe the use of nanophotonic concepts to manipulate excitation dynamics and guide nanochemistry to make a hierarchically built new generation of rare-earth of doped nanoparticles. We call these photon nanotransformers, with highly efficient frequency conversion of infrared (IR) light from a low power cw light source into visible or ultraviolet (UV) light. These photon nanotransformers open up numerous opportunities such as in high contrast bioimaging, photodynamic therapy, remote photoactivation, displays, anti-counterfeiting, biosensing, drug release and gene delivery, as well as in solar cells. They exhibit the following merits : (1) They utilize light excitation in near IR and can produce upconverted emission also in NIR, both being within the "optical transparency window" of tissues, and therefore provide high contrast 3D in vitro and in vivo imaging; (2) The naked eye is highly sensitive in the visible range, while it has no response to the NIR light, creating interest in NIR to visible frequency upconversion for security and display applications; (3) Frequency upconversion of IR to visible can be useful for IR photon harvesting, as current solar devices do not utilize IR. It is also useful for night vision (4 ) IR to UV upconversion has potential applications in photocleavage for drug /gene release, and 3D volume curing of photoactive resins for industrial and dental applications.

Nanophotonics, defined as nanoscale optical science and technology, is a rapidly growing field which offers challenging opportunities for studying the interaction between light and matter on a scale much smaller than the wavelength of radiation, as well as for the design of novel nanostructured optical materials and devices and for developing nanocharacterization tools. An important dimension of Nanophotonics is control of excitation dynamics by manipulating local relaxation and energy transfer to judiciously utilize the excitation energy for a specific purpose. Metaphotonics is a rapidly emerging new direction in Nanophotonics that deals with manipulation of electric and magnetic fields and their coupling in nanoengineered materials to control the field distribution and propagation of electromagnetic waves. An important aim for Metaphotonics is achieving negative refractive index for light manipulation. Another important direction is producing Switchable/Transformable Materials in which electrical, optical, and magnetic fields can be used for dynamic and reversible control of an optical field as well as linear and nonlinear optical functions. Their applications range from photonics communications, electronics, to solar energy harvesting, to sensor technology, biomedical technology and health care. This course will cover the fundamentals of nanoscale light-matter interaction; various nanoscale linear and nonlinear optical effects, coupling of electric and magnetic properties using nanotechnology, and novel optical effects in nanostructural hybrid materials.

Nanophotonics, defined as nanoscale optical science and technology, is a new frontier. It offers challenging opportunities for studying the interaction between light and matter on a scale much smaller than the wavelength of radiation, as well as for the design of novel nanostructural optical materials and devices. Furthermore, the use of such a confined interaction to spatially localize photochemical processes offers exciting opportunities for nanofabrication. Nanophotonics is thus of considerable technological significance. Nanophotonics also has important biomedical applications in bioimaging, optical diagnostics and photodynamic therapy. This course will cover the fundamentals of nanoscale light-matter interaction; various nanoscale linear and nonlinear optical effects; near field geometry to probe nanoscale interactions; near field microscopy to probe nanoscale structure and dynamics; near field microscopy for nanoscopic imaging and bioimaging; photonic crystals and ordered nanoscale materials; nanocomposites for photonics; novel optical effects in nanostructural materials; nanofabrication using nanoscale photochemistry; and applications of nanophotonics for bioimaging, optical diagnostics and light activated therapy.

Science and technology breakthroughs in the 21st Century are more likely to occur at the interfaces of disciplines. Biophotonics is defined as the interface of photonics or lightwave technology and the biological sciences. It is a new frontier, offering tremendous prospects for optical diagnostics as well as for light activated therapy, surgery, biosensing and restoration of biological functions. The course will include the following topics: photobiology (interaction of light with cells, interaction of light with tissues, nonlinear optical processes with intense laser beams, photo-induced effects in biological systems), bioimaging (various imaging techniques, fluorescent markers, cellular imaging, imaging of soft and hard tissues, in vivo imaging, dynamic imaging), optical diagnostics (biosensors, fluorescence immunoassay, flow cytometry), optical tweezers and scissors (laser trapping and dissection for biological manipulation, single molecule biophysics studies, DNA-protein interactions), light activated therapy (photodynamic therapy, low level light therapy), nanotechnology (application of nanoprobes, nems), and tissue engineering (use of short pulse lasers for tissue welding, tissue contouring; tissue regeneration).

Science and technology breakthroughs in the 21st Century are more likely to occur at the interfaces of disciplines. Biophotonics is defined as the interface of photonics or lightwave technology and the biological sciences. It is a new frontier, offering tremendous prospects for optical diagnostics as well as for light activated therapy, surgery, biosensing and restoration of biological functions. The course will include the following topics: photobiology (interaction of light with cells, interaction of light with tissues, photo-induced effects in biological systems), bioimaging (various imaging techniques, fluorescent markers, cellular imaging, imaging of soft and hard tissues, in vivo imaging, dynamic imaging), biosensors, light activated therapy (photodynamic therapy), and application of nanotechnology to biomedical research.