We are happy to see that in this year no less than two Nobel Prizes have been awarded on the topic "Optics & Lasers" which is directly related to our own teaching and research work. The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier for experimental work in the field of laser physics for the generation of ultra-short light pulses in the attosecond range. They hope that in the future their light source technology can also be applied to biomedical optics. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for the discovery and synthesis of "quantum dots", which already have a variety of applications in biomedical optics research.