Welcome to the COOL lab at Oregon Health & Science University. We are dedicated to the advancement of biomedical imaging techniques in order to improve the diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases.
COOL Lab Latest News
David Huang, M.D., Ph.D., named 2024 Oregon History Maker
Ophthalmologist and scientist David Huang, M.D., Ph.D., has been named a 2024 Oregon History Maker by the Oregon Historical Society. Since 2009, the society has bestowed the award onto individuals and organizations that are “positively shaping the history, culture, and landscape of Oregon.” The 2024 honorees were recognized at an awards ceremony that took place on Oct. 6 at the Portland Art Museum.
David Huang, M.D., Ph.D., receives National Medal for Technology and Innovation from President Biden
President Joe Biden on October 24th honored Dr. David Huang, our COOL-Lab director and research director of Casey Eye Institute, with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The president placed medals around the necks of Dr. Huang and two collaborators, James Fujimoto and Eric Swanson, both from MIT, in recognition of their invention of OCT. OCT has transformed the way eye disease is diagnosed and managed. It enables ophthalmologists and optometrists to identify vision-threatening diseases early, often before patients experience symptoms.
ABOUT US
Mission
The mission of the Center for Ophthalmic Optics and Lasers (COOL) is to conserve, improve and restore vision through advances in laser and optical technology.
Description
The Center for Ophthalmic Optics and Lasers (COOL) at the Casey Eye Institute, Oregon Health & Science University is an interdisciplinary research center that focuses on improving the diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases through advances in laser and optical technology. David Huang, MD, PhD, director of the COOL Lab, is a co-inventor of optical coherence tomography (OCT), which has become the most frequently used ophthalmic imaging procedure since 2003. The COOL Lab has pioneered many advances in ophthalmic OCT. In the anterior eye, COOL Lab researchers developed methods to map and measure the cornea, anterior chamber, angle, and lens and continues to lead the field in this area. This technology is now widely used to diagnose early keratoconus, narrow-angle glaucoma, ocular surface tumors, plan phototherapeutic keratectomy (PTK), and calculate intraocular lens power in patients with previous LASIK or other keratorefractive surgery. In the posterior segment, COOL Lab led the multi-center Advanced Imaging for Glaucoma bioengineering partnership,
which was responsible for developing ganglion cell complex mapping for glaucoma evaluation, Doppler OCT to measure total retinal blood flow, and the first clinical investigation using OCT angiography. COOL Lab researchers developed a very efficient OCT angiography algorithm called “split-spectrum amplitude decorrelation angiography” (SSADA), which made the first commercial clinical OCT angiography system possible. COOL Lab researchers are actively improving OCT angiography and applying it to the evaluation and management of age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, inherited retinal degenerations, and ocular tumors. On the treatment side, the COOL lab is investigating the optimal technique for combining corneal collagen crosslinking and PTK for the treatment of keratoconus and is developing a laser thermal conjunctivoplasty device provides a safe, gentle, and fast healing procedure to treat conjunctivochalasis in an ophthalmologist’s office. The interdisciplinary team is able to perform interdisciplinary research from developing hardware (ultrahigh-speed OCT, laser surgical instrumentation), advancing signal and image processing algorithms, optimizing novel laser surgical techniques, conducting pilot clinical studies, to organizing large multi-site clinical studies. The COOL Lab also supports the Casey Reading Center with advanced OCT and OCT angiography reading software that can be used in a wide variety of clinical studies in retinal and optic nerve diseases.
Presenting at ARVO 2019
RL Stevens Photography 2/21/2017
Yali Jia, PhD receiving award at ARVO 2019
Presenting at ARVO 2019