Seeing biology by listening to light offers a powerful new paradigm for biomedical imaging. Photoacoustic microscopy exploits the conversion of absorbed optical energy into ultrasonic waves, which propagate through biological tissues with far less scattering than light. By combining optical excitation with acoustic detection, this technique overcomes fundamental limitations of purely optical microscopy in imaging depth, contrast, and sensitivity, while enabling label-free visualization of morphological, functional, and molecular features at microscopic resolution.
In this seminar, Dr Tserevelakis will introduce the physical principles underlying the photoacoustic effect and review key photoacoustic microscopy implementations, with particular emphasis on hybrid optical–photoacoustic imaging platforms. He will then present recent biomedical applications where photoacoustic signals provide information inaccessible to light alone, including studies of plant tissue physiology and pathology, non-invasive assessment of fish welfare through melanin quantification, and high-resolution imaging of skin and ocular tissues.
Finally, the talk will highlight recent advances in cost-efficient, frequency-domain photoacoustic microscopy based on continuous-wave laser sources. These developments substantially lower technical and financial barriers, expanding the accessibility of photoacoustic imaging for biomedical research and paving the way toward broader clinical and translational adoption.
About the speaker
George J. Tserevelakis is a physicist and biomedical imaging researcher working at the interface of optics, acoustics, and biology. He is a laboratory teaching staff member in the Department of Biology at the University of Crete, where he teaches Physical Chemistry and advanced biomedical imaging methods, and a research associate at the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL) of the Foundation for Research and Technology–Hellas.
His research focuses on the development of innovative optical and photoacoustic imaging platforms that enable label-free exploration of complex biological processes across microscopic and mesoscopic scales. These approaches have applications ranging from tissue diagnostics and developmental biology to animal welfare assessment. In parallel, Dr Tserevelakis is actively advancing cost-efficient photoacoustic microscopy system architectures, with the goal of making this powerful imaging modality more accessible across biomedical research laboratories and future clinical settings.
