Book excerpt: The introduction of innovative light sources, fibre laser sources and light emitting diodes, is opening unexpected perspectives into optical techniques and is promising new exciting applications in the field of biomedicine. Lasers and Current Optical Techniques in Biology aims to provide an overview of light sources, together with an extensive and authoritative description of the optical techniques in bio-medicine. This book is designed to give biomedical researchers a strong feel for the capability of physical approaches, promote new interdisciplinary interests and persuade more practitioners to take advantage of optical techniques. Current developments in a variety of optical techniques, including Near-Infra Red Spectroscopy, and traditional and advanced fluorescence techniques are covered, ranging from those that are becoming common practice to those that need much more experimentation before they can be accepted as real breakthroughs. Further topics include optical coherence tomography and its variations, polarised light imaging and, principle laser and lamp sources- a usually fragmentary topic, often dispersed among specialist publications. The wide range of topics covered make Lasers and Current Optical Techniques in Biology of interest to a diverse range of scientific communities.