A new optical microscope developed by UCLA engineers could make it easier to distinguish and isolate rare cells from among a large population of assorted cells for early detection of disease and for monitoring disease treatments.

“To catch these elusive cells, the camera must be able to capture and digitally process millions of images continuously at a very high frame rate [36.7 MHz],” said Bahram Jalali, who holds the Northrop Grumman Endowed Opto-Electronic Chair in Electrical Engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. “Conventional CCD and CMOS cameras are not fast and sensitive enough. It takes time to read the data from the array of pixels, and they become less sensitive to light at high speed.”