Abstract: The invention provides a family of agents that target bacterial infection, which can be used as imaging agents or therapeutic agents. The agents can be used to image sites of bacterial infection as well as other physiological processes in a subject.

Abstract: The invention relates to systems and methods for tomographic imaging of a subject comprising diffuse media by converting measurements of electromagnetic radiation, e.g., fluorescent light, obtained in free space exterior to the subject into data that would be measured if the subject were surrounded by an infinite and homogeneous diffusive medium, e.g., a medium with optical properties equal to the average optical properties of the subject. After applying a transformation to convert measurements to virtually-matched values, propagation of light is simulated from the index-matched surface to a set of virtual detectors exterior to the subject and arranged in a geometrically advantageous fashion, for example, in a planar array, thereby facilitating the use of fast reconstruction techniques.