Fiber-based instrument for simultaneous exogenous fluorescence and endogenous fluorescence lifetime imaging of engineered vascular tissue (Conference Presentation)

Endogenous and exogenous fluorescence imaging have shown great values for monitoring and studying all kind of biological processes including vascular tissue regeneration and disease progression. In this study, we present a fiber-based optical imaging instrument that is able to simultaneously acquire endogenous and exogenous fluorescence images from tissue samples using a reflective optical chopper wheel to temporally interleave the two modalities. The functionality of the system was demonstrated by imaging native tissue constructs seeded with cells labeled with different dyes. The cellular regions were clearly resolved in both modalities, providing an exogenous and in-situ validation for endogenous fluorescence lifetime images.