The overall goal of the proposed research is to design, fabricate, and test a novel optical imaging system that provides rapid acquisition of both spatial and fluorescence spectral information without the need for mechanical scanning. The operation of the instrument is based on the high spatial and spectral sampling properties of volume holographic imaging systems (VHIS) to achieve micron scale spatial resolution over depths of up to one millimeters and nanometer range spectral resolution. The VHIS represents a major advance over other forms of imaging modalities since it simultaneously can provide both spatial and spectral sample information and eliminates the need for mechanical scanning. A multiplexed holographic filter is used that simultaneously projects multiple sections of the sample onto the surface of a camera. The speed of data acquisition is determined by the transfer rate of the camera and therefore scales with rapidly developing digital camera technology. The VHIS will be rigorously tested with well-characterized tissue phantoms. Proof of principle in-vivo imaging will be performed on a mouse xenograph cancer model with exogenous fluorescence contrast agent. At the end of the proposal period we expect to have developed a robust, low-cost, fast imaging system ideal for use in studies of cancer detection, diagnosis, and basic research. The specific aims of this proposal will test critical steps in the design and implementation of a VHIS for medical imaging applications. The specific aims are to: 1) develop a methodology for high spatial-spectral resolution holographic filter design, 2) design and fabricate an imaging system based on volume holographic filters for spatial and spectral imaging of tissue samples, and 3) conduct experiments to evaluate system performance using well-characterized tissue phantoms and imaging in-vivo mouse models. The main outcome of the proposed work will be to demonstrate the ability of a VHIS to fully image the volume of a biological tissue sample without scanning and to obtain fluorescence information. This will be a major advance over other forms of optical imaging systems for medical applications. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]