Computational Biophotonics

shaping light for medical diagnostics
Durr Lab @ JHU
BME Design Teams

Learn the design process by
defining an unmet clinical need
and developing an innovative solution.

Multiple Postdoctoral Fellowship positions available Fall 2025 and beyond!

Mission

Our goal is to create impactful technologies that improve diagnostics, reduce costs, and increase accessibility to high-quality healthcare.

We utilize concepts from optical engineering, light-tissue interaction, computer vision, machine learning, and biodesign to invent new ways to see and treat disease.

Recent publications

Sickle cell visualization in vivo in humans: microvascular occlusion formation and hemorheological indices

Morakis MM*, Huang L*, McKay GN, Lanzkron S, Pecker LH, Durr NJ.
Blood Advances 2026
[Journal Link] [Preprint]

C3VDv2 — Colonoscopy 3D video dataset with enhanced realism

Golhar M, Galeano Fretes LS, Ayers L, Akshintala VS, Bobrow TL, Durr NJ.
arXiv 2025
[Preprint]

Multi-contrast laser endoscopy for in vivo gastrointestinal imaging

Bobrow TL, Golhar M, Arayakarnkul S, Song AA, Ngamruengphong S, Durr NJ.
arXiv 2025
[Preprint]

Back-illumination interference tomography for imaging weak scattering in thick tissues

McKay GN, Mertz J, Durr NJ.
Optica 12:12 2025
[Journal Link] [Preprint]

SAM2Flow: Interactive Optical Flow Estimation with Dual Memory for in vivo Microcirculation Analysis

Huang L, Zhang R, Morakis MM, Taylor-Williams M, McKay GN, Durr NJ.
NeurIPS 2025
[Journal Link]

Join us!

Apply for undergraduate and MSE research opportunities here

Learn about our work

2025

05/18-22 session chair of Advances in Optics for Medicine, Engineering Conference International (Cork Ireland)
04/20-24 co-chair of Optica Novel Techniques in Microscopy conference (Coronado, CA)
03/22 talk at Deep Reconstruction Workshop (Baltimore, MD)
02/14 posters at Hopkins WSE / DoM Retreat (Baltimore, MD)
01/25-30 Invited (3) and Contributed (3) talks at SPIE Photonics West (San Francisco, CA)
01/24 talk at Stanford Symposium on Optical Surgical Navigation (Palo Alto, CA)

2024

12/07 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting (San Diego, CA)
11/25 Hosting Umut Gurkan for BME Seminar (Baltimore, MD)
11/06 GITCC Webinar Korea/Hopkins Biotechnology Innovation Center (Online)
10/23 BMES Annual Meeting (Baltimore, MD)
10/17 Seminar at Rice University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Houston, TX)
10/02 Seminar at Duke University’s Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics (Durham, NC)
09/19 ARPA-H PSI Meeting (Salt Lake City, UT)
07/12 Presentation at Gordon Research Conference: Optics and Photonics in Medicine and Biology (Lewiston, ME)
05/20 Presentation at HHMI Janelia Farms Conference on Computational Optics (Ashburn, VA)
04/13 Invited Talk at American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery Annual Conference (Baltimore, MD)
04/03 Invited Talk at Biomedical Engineering Society Spring Seminar Series (Baltimore, MD)
03/18 Invited Talk at Johns Hopkins Hematology Seminar (Baltimore, MD)
03/09 Hopkins BME Faculty Retreat (Washington DC)
01/27 Invited Talks at SPIE Photonics West (San Francisco, CA)
01/11 Seminar at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Pathology Seminar (New York, NY)

2023

11/14 Vanderbilt Bioengineering for Global Health Conference (Nashville, TN)
11/02 UT Austin BME Seminar (Austin, TX)
10/15 ECI Advances in Optics for Biotechnology, Medicine and Surgery (Tomar, Portugal)
09/21 Rising Stars in Engineering in Health Workshop (Ithaca, NY)
09/14 Learning from Light: An Optica Incubator on Machine Learning (Washington DC)
06/12 Photonics North (Montreal, Canada)
05/02 WSE Design Day (Baltimore, MD)
04/23 Optica Biophotonics Congress (Vancouver, Canada)
03/27 Hosting Giovanni Traverso for BME Seminar Speaker (Baltimore, MD)
03/15 Dolphin Tank Healthcare Innovation Showcase (Baltimore, MD)
03/06 Hosting Rebecca Richards-Kortum for BME Seminar Speaker (Baltimore, MD)
02/05 Biomedical and Astronomical Signal Processing (BASP) (Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland)
01/28 SPIE Photonics West (San Francisco, CA)

2022

11/18 Rising Stars in Engineering and Health Workshop (Baltimore, MD)
11/07 Hosting Susana Marcos at the Wilmer Seminar Series (Baltimore, MD)
10/17 Optica Frontiers in Optics (Rochester, NY)
09/13 SPIE Translational Biophotonics Symposium (Los Angeles, CA)
07/11 GRC Optics and Photonics in Medicine and Biology (Lewiston, ME)
04/25 Optica Biophotonics Congress (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
01/25 SPIE Photonics West (San Francisco, CA)

2021

11/17 The MedTech Network
10/23 JHU Home+ Impact Panel
10/07 BMES
10/06 JHU Undergraduate Admissions Faculty Lecture
09/30 MICCAI ’21 (Online)
09/07 Biophysics Program, University of Maryland, College Park (In-person!)
07/23 Biomedical Imaging and Photonics Society, Georgia Tech and Emory, ~~Atlanta~~ (Online)
05/21 Featured Speaker at 13th Annual Breast Cancer Research Retreat, Johns Hopkins Oncology, ~~Baltimore~~ (Online)
05/10 Global Oncology Group, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, ~~Philly~~ (Online)
05/07 Wellman Center for Photomedicine Machine Learning OCT Symposium, ~~Boston~~ (Online), YouTube Video
05/07 Design Day, Whiting School of Engineering, ~~Baltimore~~ (Online)
04/19 BWH/Harvard Computational Pathology Symposium, ~~Boston~~ (Online)
04/12 OSA Biophotonics Congress, ~~Vancouver~~ (Online)
03/02 Photonics West, ~~San Francisco~~ (Online)
02/17 UC Berkeley BioE Seminar, ~~Berkeley, CA~~ (Online)
02/12 Columbia University BME Seminar, ~~NYC~~ (Online)
02/09 Vanderbilt University Biophotonics Seminar Series, ~~Nashville~~ (Online)
02/01 Tufts University BME Seminar, ~~Boston~~ (Online)

2020

11/23 The Institute of Optics Colloquium, ~~University of Rochester~~ (Online)
11/04 Academic Mentoring Virtual Workshop (Online)
09/28 IEEE Photonics Conference, ~~Vancouver~~ (Online)
09/18 ChemE Department Seminar, ~~University of Cincinnati~~ (Online)
~~07/12 Gordon Research Conference: Optics in Medicine, Maine~~
06/08 Science Journalist Bootcamp, DC (Online)
~~05/17 SPIE Translational Biophotonics, Rice University, Houston~~
05/05 BME/CBID Design Day, ~~Baltimore~~ (Online)
~~05/03 ARVO Conference, Baltimore~~
04/19 CBID Design Competition, ~~Baltimore~~ (Online)
04/03 IEEE ISBI Workshop on Endoscopy Computer Vision, Keynote Speaker, ~~Iowa~~ (Online)
~~03/26 Machine Learning Symposium, MIT/MGH, Boston~~
02/10 Hosting Bruce Tromberg for BME Seminar Series (Baltimore, MD)
02/01 SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco
01/23 Olympus Corporate Invited Presentation, Tokyo
01/21 Olympus Artificial Intelligence Group Invited Presentation, Tokyo

2019

12/03 U of Washington ME Department Seminar, Seattle
11/25 AI in Healthcare Symposium, Baltimore
10/30 Rising Stars Workshop, Baltimore
10/25 Boston University BME Department Presentation, Boston
10/24 Harvard Med School Pathology Presentation, Boston
10/17 BMES, Philly
09/28 AI in GI, DC
09/27 MedHacks, Baltimore
09/20 JHU BME PhD Retreat, Baltimore
09/12 Boston Scientific Corporate Technology Scouting Deep Dive Presentation
08/01 Coulter College, Medtronic HQ, MN
07/01 UC Irvine / Beckman Laser Center, Irvine
06/02 ECI, Montreal
05/14 MIT/MGH Lester-Wolfe Workshop in Laser Biomedicine, Boston
05/07 Hopkins Design Day, Baltimore
05/06 ICLR, New Orleans
04/14 OSA Biophotonics, Tucson
02/18 SPIE Medical Imaging, San Diego
02/01 SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco

Computational Biophotonics

shaping light for medical diagnostics

Durr Lab @ JHU

BME Design Teams

Learn the design process by
defining an unmet clinical need
and developing an innovative solution.

Mission

Recent publications

Sickle cell visualization in vivo in humans: microvascular occlusion formation and hemorheological indices

C3VDv2 — Colonoscopy 3D video dataset with enhanced realism

Multi-contrast laser endoscopy for in vivo gastrointestinal imaging

Back-illumination interference tomography for imaging weak scattering in thick tissues

SAM2Flow: Interactive Optical Flow Estimation with Dual Memory for in vivo Microcirculation Analysis

Join us!

Learn about our work

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

Visit us

Johns Hopkins University
Clark Hall 208E (Office)
Clark Hall 100 (Lab)
3400 N Charles St
Baltimore, MD 21218

Johns Hopkins Medical Institute
Traylor 606; 733 N Broadway (Office)
Carnegie 754; 1775 E Monument St (Lab)
Baltimore, MD 21287
Directions

Computational Biophotonics

shaping light for medical diagnostics

Durr Lab @ JHU

BME Design Teams

Learn the design process by defining an unmet clinical need and developing an innovative solution.

Mission

Join us!

Learn about our work

Visit us

Learn the design process by
defining an unmet clinical need
and developing an innovative solution.