Biomedical research is a fundamental pillar for mankind wellness. Knowledge of the human body and its functioning has allowed us not only to live longer, but also to live better. This research mainly depends on imaging techniques to study living specimens. However, current technology is limited when trying to study processes inside living organisms. While high-energy systems (X-ray, Computed Tomography) are able to peek at big depths, they use harmful ionizing radiation and have very coarse resolution (millimeter). During the last decades, the refinement of optical techniques has provided new tools to study biological processes with non-ionizing radiation and submicron spatial resolution, able to resolve the details of cells. However, these techniques only work well on thin and quasi transparent samples but fail to provide good results at big depths on in vivo tissue samples due to light scattering.

This proposal will deploy new instrumentation to extend the penetration depth of optical imaging techniques through scattering media and to increase the different physical properties of the light being measured simultaneously, by smart beam delivery and single-pixel detection. In particular, we will develop new diffuse optical imaging methods. We will use microstructured light patterns projected at high speed, methods to detect very weak variations of a light signal, and measurement techniques that discriminate ballistic and diffuse light using integrating spheres. We will develop also a multimodal microscope combining fluorescence and phase imaging techniques to obtain useful complementary information on the selected area of a sample. Additionally, we will develop new strategies for multidimensional imaging, including spatial, spectral and temporal properties of a sample, based on new adaptive sensing techniques and innovative compressive sensing approaches with multiple regularization.