The Journal of Biomedical Optics will be an international scientific journal describing the role of modern optics technology in improving medical diagnostics, therapeutic methods and biomedical research. Many new applications in health care are made possible by the emerging technologies of lasers, fiber optics, imaging, physical and chemical sensors, and optoelectronic devices.
The Journal will be published by the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) in Bellingham, Wash. The Journal's first issue is expected to be in January 1996. Subsequent issues will be published on a quarterly basis. Contributions to the journal will be interdisciplinary. The Journal will also publish brief reviews or articles about emerging science issues, technology transfer, market projections and ethics.
Vo-Dinh said the Journal will be significant because it is the first publication that focuses on the explosive growth of the use of optics technology for health care research.
Vo-Dinh and other members of the editorial board were selected for their expertise in optics technology by the SPIE Publications Committee and the Journal's editor-in-chief, Dr. Joseph R. Lakowicz of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Vo-Dinh was selected for his experience with biosensors and biomedical instrumentation. For more than 20 years, he has conducted research in the fields of chemical analysis, environmental monitoring and human health protection. His research has led to the development of optical techniques to detect cancer rapidly and the creation of a new generation of biosensors that use antibody and gene probes to detect genetic diseases.
In 1994, Vo-Dinh was named a Martin Marietta Energy Systems Corporate Fellow. He is also the leader of the advanced monitoring development group in the Chemical and Biological Physics Section of the Health and Sciences Research Division.
Vo-Dinh joined ORNL as a staff research scientist in 1977. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 1971 at Ecole Polytechnique Federale in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1975, he earned a doctorate in physical chemistry from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.
Vo-Dinh has earned many professional awards and achievements including the Gold Medal Award from the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, four R&D 100 awards from Research and Development magazine, the Medal Languedoc-Roussillion Award from France, the Thomas Jefferson Award from Martin Marietta Corporation, two International Hall of Fame awards from the Inventors Club of America, and two Technology Transfer awards from the Federal Laboratory Consortium.
A native of Vietnam, Vo-Dinh has been chairman of many international conferences and scientific committees. He is a U.S. delegate to NATO Industrial Advisory Group; he is also a fellow of the American Institute of Chemists and a past president of the International Society on Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds. Vo-Dinh is an associate editor of two international scientific journals, .
ANALUSIS and Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds, and an editorial board member for several other international magazines. He has been author or co-author of more than 200 publications and five books, and holds several patents.
Vo-Dinh lives in Knoxville with his wife, Kim-Chi. They have one daughter, Jade.
ORNL, one of DOE's multiprogram national research and development facilities, is managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, which also manages the Oak Ridge K-25 Site and the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant.