Optical Technology Transfer and Innovation in Ophthalmic Imaging

This book presents a new view of symbiotic technology transfer between different fields in the optical sciences. For example, adaptive optics were initially developed for military research programs seeking to correct the effects of atmospheric fluctuations on telescopes. The technology was subsequently transferred to optical microscopes, and then finally used in ophthalmic imaging devices to image photoreceptors in the living human retina. This book examines various recent and historical technology transfers among the optical sciences, and attempts to answer the following questions: What are the mathematical and the physical foundations of these technology advances? What events and influences (military requirements, new journals, new funding sources, the internet, etc.) made the technologies and their transfer possible? What was the impact of technology transfer on the development of optical science? What role did the human eye and visual system play in technology development? This book examines how innovations propagate from one field to another, illustrating the benefits of cross-disciplinary collaboration. 
 
This book is about curiosity, skepticism, innovation, and creativity in science and technology, and explores practices that advance innovation and those that inhibit innovation. Analyses of some selected, pertinent case studies highlight the roles of unique individuals who were able to make the journey from initial concept to widespread clinical acceptance of their instruments. What are the common factors of their education, experiences, and approaches that resulted in their inventions and innovations?

This book is intended to inspire and encourage those who dream of advancing the diagnostics and the treatment of diseases through new medical devices. It also addresses budding startup dreamers, venture capitalists, research directors, and funding agency administrators by providing new insights into practices that promote and inhibit innovation. This book should be of interest to scientists and researchers in many fields of optics, as well as technical policy makers at funding institutions.

Professor Barry R. Masters has received a PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, an MS degree from Florida State University, and a BS from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York. Professor Masters was Visiting Scientist in the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Visiting Scholar in the History of Science Department at Harvard University, Visiting Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Bern, and Professor in Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He was a Visiting Professor in Japan, India, Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Turkey, Wales, England, P. R. China, and Egypt. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), OPTICA, formerly called the Optical Society of America (OSA), and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). From 1999 to 2000 Professor Masters was an AAAS Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow and served as Legislative Assistant at the United States Congress. He is a recipient of the Vogt Prize for Ophthalmic Research (highest Swiss award for research in ophthalmology) with Professor Dr. Matthias Böhnke in 1999 for their work on “Confocal Microscopy of the Cornea.” Professor Masters has published 87 refereed papers, 143 book chapters and proceedings articles, 105 abstracts, and 269 book reviews. He presented 416 invited lectures. He is the editor or author of 11 books, including Noninvasive Diagnostic Techniques in Ophthalmology, Confocal Microscopy and Multiphoton Excitation Microscopy: The Genesis of Live Cell Imaging, Handbook of Biomedical Nonlinear Optical Microscopy (with Professor Peter T. C. So), and Superresolution Optical Microscopy, The Quest for Enhanced Resolution and Contrast that was published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG (2020). This book has been accessed 36,000 times (May 1, 2025). He wrote the essay “What Is Light?” (translated into 15 languages) for the International Commission for Optics (ICO) to inaugurate the International Year of Light, 2015. He lectures worldwide on the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), biomedical ethics, critical thinking, and biomedical photonics. His scholarly interests include developments in the fields of in vivo microscopy of the human eye and skin, biomedical imaging and spectroscopy, fractal analysis of branching patterns in the human retinal vasculature, ethics in science and medicine, the history of 19^th and 20^th century physics, science education, and the nexus of art, optics, and human visual science.