2020 SPIE-Franz Hillenkamp Postdoctoral Fellowship Awarded

SPIE has announced Fernando Zvietcovich as the winner of the 2020 SPIE-Franz Hillenkamp Postdoctoral Fellowship in Problem-Driven Biomedical Optics and Analytics. Zvietcovich, currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Rochester, will receive recognition during the BiOS Hot Topics session at SPIE Photonics West 2020 in San Francisco on Feb. 1.

Fernando Zvietcovich is pictured in the Goergen Hall lab of optics professor and supervisor Jannick Rolland. Photo courtesy: Adam Fenster, University of Rochester.

Zvietcovich’s research will focus on translating a novel biophotonics-based optical coherence elastography (OCE) method, developed and designed for the noninvasive quantification of corneal spatial biomechanical properties in 3D, into the in vivo clinical use for human ocular disease diagnostics and treatment monitoring. Kirill Larin and Michael Twa at the University of Houston’s Biomedical Optics Lab will partner with Zvietcovich, with Larin’s lab having covered the same work over the past five years.

Zvietcovich said that in recent years his research has added to the scientific community’s efforts to demonstrate OCE’s ability to advance the diagnosis and monitoring of ocular diseases and treatments in ophthalmology.

“Following the precedent of clinically available elastography technologies implemented in other imaging modalities, I strongly believe it is time to translate wave-based OCE into a medical device for its clinical use with human patients,” Zvietcovich said. “Receiving this prestigious fellowship from SPIE will enable me and my colleagues to achieve such a goal and, in the long term, improve people’s quality of health.”

“This is a very exciting proposal from an excellent researcher working in a lab recognized for innovative research that translates into solving medical problems,” said the co-chairs of the Hillenkamp Fellowship Committee, Rox Anderson and Gabriela Apiou. “Fernando’s area of focus will directly impact critical challenges in health care, and we look forward to seeing the outcome of his work.”

Honoring the career of medical laser pioneer Franz Hillenkamp, the $75,000 SPIE-Hillenkamp Fellowship supports interdisciplinary problem-driven research and provides opportunities for translating new technologies into clinical practice for improving human health. It is presented in a partnership between the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, the Beckman Laser Institute, the Manstein Lab in the Cutaneous Biology Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, Medical Laser Center Lübeck, Boston University, and the Hillenkamp family. The endowment is funded through generous donations from the biomedical optics community, with SPIE contributing matching funds up to $1.5 million.

Applications for the 2021 SPIE-Hillenkamp Fellowship will open in February 2020.