David Wegner has been named as the winner of the SPIE 2011 Young Investigator Award, which is sponsored by Ocean Optics of Dunedin, Fla. The Young Investigator Award is presented to the researcher — no more than five years out of school — who authors the best juried paper submitted to the "Colloidal Quantum Dots for Biomedical Applications VI" session of the 2011 BiOS/SPIE Photonics West conference. The award, which includes $1000 and a company grant to the investigator's advisor, was presented during the Jan. 24 session. David Wegner is the winner of the SPIE 2011 Young Investigator Award, sponsored by Ocean Optics and presented at the BiOS conference of SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco on Jan. 24. Pictured are (l-r) Kenji Yamamoto (conference chair), Niko Hildebrandt (author), Wegner (winner and lead author), Wolfgang Parak (conference chair), Marek Osinski (conference chair) and Richard Pollard (Ocean Optics chief operating officer). Wegner, part of a research team at the University of Potsdam in Germany that included Daniel Geissler and Hans-Gerd Löhmannsröben, was honored for his work as lead author of "Time-resolved and steady-state FRET spectroscopy on commercial biocompatible quantum dots." Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a mechanism describing energy transfer between chromophores. Wegner's advisor is professor Niko Hildebrandt of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research in Potsdam. "Twenty years ago, our company prospered because someone believed and invested in a team of young researchers with a vision. The energy and enthusiasm that this year's SPIE participants demonstrated is a great reminder that young investigators represent the promise of both scientific discovery and industry growth," said Rob Morris, Ocean Optics marketing director. A subsidiary of Halma plc, Ocean Optics makes chemical sensors, analytical instrumentation, optical fibers, metrology products and optics. For more information, visit: www.oceanoptics.com