NWO Open Competition Domain Science-XS Grant
July 9, 2026: The Dutch Research Council has granted our proposal “Tackling Cardiovascular Diseases: Reading Blood Clot Microstructure with Back-Scattered Light”. In this project, we want to explore the use of backscattered light microscopy for analyzing the microstructure of intact blood clots, making time-consuming sectioning or expensive hardware obsolete. If successful, our project will provide a fast, low-cost method for quantifying microstructure and predicting the mechanical behavior of blood clots, eventually improving the treatment of life-threatening diseases like heart attack or stroke.
Read More ...CARES Consortium Meeting
July 1, 2026: Hamed Abbasi and Loes Ettema presented their work at the annual consortium meeting of the Medical Delta Program ‘Cancer diagnostics for sustainable health care (CARES)’. Hamed gave a talk about collagen-specific scattered light microscopy for enhanced cancer diagnostics, and Loes presented a poster about revealing fiber orientations on biological tissue surfaces with backscattered light.
Biomedical Optics Meeting
June 18, 2026: Loes Ettema has presented her work at the First Dutch Biomedical Optics Meeting at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. Loes talked about “Nerve fiber mapping on brain tissue surfaces using backscattered light imaging”.
Publication on Tumor Tissue Architecture
April 29, 2026: We have published a paper in Biomedical Optics Express about whole-slide mapping of tumor tissue architecture via computational scattered light imaging.
SPIE Photonics Europe Presentations
April 16, 2026: Hamed Abbasi, Mark Vermeulen, and Loes Ettema have presented their work at SPIE Photonics Europe in Strasbourg, France. Hamed talked about “Multimodal computational scattered light microscopy for collagen-specific whole-slide fiber mapping”, Mark about “Quantitative 3D-orientation mapping of biological fibers in computational scattered light imaging enabled through 3D-nanoprinted phantoms”, and Loes presented a poster on “Revealing fiber orientations on biological tissue surfaces with backscattered light imaging”.
Library Exhibition 'Enhancing the Senses'
March 17, 2026: The TU Delft Library has opened an exhibition dedicated to the faculty of Applied Sciences that is featuring our research. The “Enhancing the senses” exhibition displays a 3D-printed human brain together with a ComSLI fiber orientation map, and recommended books on optics and brain imaging.
Article in IO+
November 26, 2025: The journalism platform IO+ (Innovation Origins) wrote an article about our research and latest publication. The article is called: “A new lens into the brain’s fiber maze”. The platform focuses on innovations and developments in the Netherlands and beyond, and publishes stories of people and organizations whose innovations are tackling the big problems of our time.
Article in 'De Ingenieur'
November 18, 2025: Our research and latest publication has been featured in the Dutch magazine De Ingenieur which describes relevant technology developments in the Netherlands. The article is called “Belichtingstechniek onthult vezelnetwerk in hersenen” (English translation: Imaging technique reveals fiber network in brains).
Dissertation Award
November 7, 2025: Franca auf der Heiden (former PhD student in the Menzel lab) has received the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Dissertation Award in Physics. The prize is endowed with 4,000 euros and honours outstanding doctoral achievements in physics. Franca wrote her PhD thesis on “High-Speed Multi-Modal Scattering Polarimetry for Nerve Fiber Imaging”. Congratulations on this great achievement!
Publication in Nature Communications
November 5, 2025: We have published a paper in Nature Communications about the ability of Computational Scattered Light Imaging to visualize directed structures in all kinds of histological tissue samples, independent of sample preparation. This study has been made possible by a collaboration between Stanford University (USA), Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany), and Erasmus MC in Rotterdam (Netherlands).
