CBS News recently profiled Erin Elmore, a 30-year-old Philadelphia lawyer, who recently tested a do-it-yourself laser hair-removal system, and now calls the device her new best friend.
The device she tested, Tria by Tria Beauty (Pleasanton, CA) is one of a new crop of at-home laser devices; Home Skinovations’ (Toronto, Ontario) Silk'n is another. The units are priced less than $1000, and are available through doctors’ offices and medical spas.
Now, Quasar Light Therapy (Sarasota, FL) has announced the retail launch of its consumer laser product, an anti-aging/ skin-rejuvenation system, Baby Quasar, which reportedly sells for less than $400.
CBS News recently profiled Erin Elmore, a 30-year-old Philadelphia lawyer, who recently tested a do-it-yourself laser hair-removal system, and now calls the device her new best friend.
The device she tested, Tria by Tria Beauty (Pleasanton, CA) is one of a new crop of at-home laser devices; Home Skinovations’ (Toronto, Ontario) Silk'n is another. The units are priced less than $1000, and are available through doctors’ offices and medical spas.
Now, Quasar Light Therapy (Sarasota, FL) has announced the retail launch of its consumer laser product, an anti-aging/ skin-rejuvenation system, Baby Quasar, which reportedly sells for less than $400. Introduced in 2007, it has been sold to consumers through the Internet and catalogs previously, and will be available in Dillard’s department stores beginning in November (that is, as early as tomorrow).
The New York Times published an article last summer that had medical doctors questioning such devices, but, I suspect Baby Quasar will benefit from the upward-trending concern for appearance demonstrated by an article that ran this week in news outlets across the nation, “Economic Update: You Should Invest (in Your Appearance).”
Admittedly, impressive percentage growth is not unusual for a young company, but according to Quasar Light Therapy president Peter Nesbitt, “We anticipate our triple digit growth to continue with the introduction of new technology in the first half of 2009."
More information:
CBS News report
New York Times article
Economic Update: You Should Invest (in Your Appearance) in Denver Business Journal
Quasar Light Therapy’s Baby Quasar
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Big names in bio at FiO
I knew I’d find some interesting things at the OSA’s Frontiers in Optics event last week, but I actually found much more than I expected. Two of the conference tracks were mainly dedicated to bio topics, and beyond that, several other presentations also also focused on bio. For instance, James Fujimoto of MIT, widely recognized for his invention and application of optical coherence tomography (OCT), presented on the use of OCT for biomedical applications as part of a tribute to Dr. Howard Schlossberg of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
I knew I’d find some interesting things at the OSA’s Frontiers in Optics event last week, but I actually found much more than I expected. Two of the conference tracks were mainly dedicated to bio topics, and beyond that, several other presentations also also focused on bio. For instance, renowned scientist James Fujimoto of MIT, widely recognized for his invention and application of optical coherence tomography (OCT), presented on the use of OCT for biomedical applications as part of a tribute to Dr. Howard Schlossberg of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Among other “big names” in biomedical optics attending the event was OSA president-elect Dr. Tom Baer, who is Executive Director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center at Stanford University and co-founder of Arcturus Bioscience, Inc. And also Dr. Robert R. Alfano, Distinguished Professor of Science and Engineering at City University of New York, and director of the Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers. At the time, Prof. Alfano was preparing the webcast that he presented yesterday along with Dr. Stavros Demos of Lawrence Livermore National Lab and UC Davis, called Key secrets of biospectroscopy. We’ve gotten very positive response on the webcast, by the way, so check it out if you’ve got an interest in the spectroscopy for cancer detection and other life sciences work. (Just click the “register” button and you’ll be able to view or download the whole presentation or just an MP3 audio file.)
Prof. Alfano shared with me some great stories of his career, which I’ll highlight in the November/December issue. (Did you know that his discovery of the ultrafast supercontinuum light source was an accident?)
More information:
"Key secrets of biospectroscopy" webcast
OSA’s Frontiers in Optics 2008
Dr. Howard Schlossberg bio
I knew I’d find some interesting things at the OSA’s Frontiers in Optics event last week, but I actually found much more than I expected. Two of the conference tracks were mainly dedicated to bio topics, and beyond that, several other presentations also also focused on bio. For instance, renowned scientist James Fujimoto of MIT, widely recognized for his invention and application of optical coherence tomography (OCT), presented on the use of OCT for biomedical applications as part of a tribute to Dr. Howard Schlossberg of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Among other “big names” in biomedical optics attending the event was OSA president-elect Dr. Tom Baer, who is Executive Director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center at Stanford University and co-founder of Arcturus Bioscience, Inc. And also Dr. Robert R. Alfano, Distinguished Professor of Science and Engineering at City University of New York, and director of the Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers. At the time, Prof. Alfano was preparing the webcast that he presented yesterday along with Dr. Stavros Demos of Lawrence Livermore National Lab and UC Davis, called Key secrets of biospectroscopy. We’ve gotten very positive response on the webcast, by the way, so check it out if you’ve got an interest in the spectroscopy for cancer detection and other life sciences work. (Just click the “register” button and you’ll be able to view or download the whole presentation or just an MP3 audio file.)
Prof. Alfano shared with me some great stories of his career, which I’ll highlight in the November/December issue. (Did you know that his discovery of the ultrafast supercontinuum light source was an accident?)
More information:
"Key secrets of biospectroscopy" webcast
OSA’s Frontiers in Optics 2008
Dr. Howard Schlossberg bio
Thursday, October 16, 2008
FiO 08 emphasizes biomed research
I’m looking forward to next week’s Frontiers in Optics 2008 (Oct. 19-23, Rochester, NY), which is the 92nd Annual Meeting of the Optical Society (OSA). The event is logically co-located with Laser Science XXIV, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Laser Science). It will be tough to split my time between the exhibit hall and the numerous conference sessions describing optics advances for medical research -- which the conference organizers are clearly emphasizing. Here’s a quick look at five of those presentations:
I’m looking forward to next week’s Frontiers in Optics 2008 (Oct. 19-23, Rochester, NY), which is the 92nd Annual Meeting of the Optical Society (OSA). The event is logically co-located with Laser Science XXIV, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Laser Science). It will be tough to split my time between the exhibit hall and the numerous conference sessions describing optics advances for medical research -- which the conference organizers are clearly emphasizing. Here’s a quick look at five of those presentations:
1. Presentation FTuD3, Optical Intraoperative Measurement of Function in the Human Brain, (Tuesday, Oct. 21, 9:15 a.m.), will discuss how Paul Hoy and colleagues at the University of Southampton in England are developing a rapid and highly sensitive light-reflectance method for measuring brain function across the entire area during surgery. The team got good results when they evaluated their approach on four people undergoing brain surgery; they are now collecting data that will lead to a clinical trial.
2. Another presentation taking place at the same time will describe new optical techniques that may facilitate study of the link between altered blood flow and Alzheimer's disease (FTuE4, Femtosecond Laser-Induced Microvascular Clots Trigger Alzheimer's Disease Pathology, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 9:15 a.m). Chris Schaffer and colleagues at Cornell University use tightly focused femtosecond lasers to introduce clots in the microvasculature in the brains of rodents. The laser cuts open the cells lining the blood vessels, triggering clotting and leading to occlusion formation. Schaffer and his colleagues plan to systematically study the effect of these clots on the cognitive decline of the Alzheimer's mice.
3. Schaffer, by the way, is advisor to Cornell doctoral candidate John Nguyen, who has developed an animal model for looking at the effect of small strokes in the tiny venules in the brains of rodents. They are using a laser and nonlinear optics to target and clot vessels of the venule system and then monitor the effect on blood flow in upstream capillaries in the brain. (FTuE3, Femtosecond Laser-Driven Photodisruption to Induce Single Venule Occlusions in Rodent Brain, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 9 a.m).
4. Later that morning, researchers from the University of Michigan will reveal an optical method to detect pancreatic cancer in patients at early stages -- an advance that could greatly improve the chances of patient surviva. They are using a multimodal optical spectroscopy approach to observe reflectance and fluorescence properties of pancreatic tissue samples. Spectral analysis has shown significant differences between normal, pancreatitis (inflammation) and cancerous tissues, thus suggesting non-invasive diagnostic possibilities. That work is described in presentation FTuK5, Modeling Reflectance and Fluorescence Spectra of Human Pancreatic Tissues for Cancer Diagnostics, (Tuesday, Oct. 21, 11:30 a.m.).
5. And while the conference will feature plenty more bio research, here’s the last one I’ll cover here: University of Indiana researchers will explain a new technique using near-infrared light that allows them to see blood flow within all capillaries of the light sensitive tissues in the retina at the back of the eye (FWW6, Constructing Human Retinal Capillary Maps from Adaptive Optics SLO Imaging, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 5:15 p.m.) This patient-friendly alternative to the current unpleasant diagnostic method relies on adaptive optics combined with a confocal scanning laser opthalmoscope.
I hope to see you at the show!
More information:
Frontiers in Optics 2008
I’m looking forward to next week’s Frontiers in Optics 2008 (Oct. 19-23, Rochester, NY), which is the 92nd Annual Meeting of the Optical Society (OSA). The event is logically co-located with Laser Science XXIV, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Laser Science). It will be tough to split my time between the exhibit hall and the numerous conference sessions describing optics advances for medical research -- which the conference organizers are clearly emphasizing. Here’s a quick look at five of those presentations:
1. Presentation FTuD3, Optical Intraoperative Measurement of Function in the Human Brain, (Tuesday, Oct. 21, 9:15 a.m.), will discuss how Paul Hoy and colleagues at the University of Southampton in England are developing a rapid and highly sensitive light-reflectance method for measuring brain function across the entire area during surgery. The team got good results when they evaluated their approach on four people undergoing brain surgery; they are now collecting data that will lead to a clinical trial.
2. Another presentation taking place at the same time will describe new optical techniques that may facilitate study of the link between altered blood flow and Alzheimer's disease (FTuE4, Femtosecond Laser-Induced Microvascular Clots Trigger Alzheimer's Disease Pathology, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 9:15 a.m). Chris Schaffer and colleagues at Cornell University use tightly focused femtosecond lasers to introduce clots in the microvasculature in the brains of rodents. The laser cuts open the cells lining the blood vessels, triggering clotting and leading to occlusion formation. Schaffer and his colleagues plan to systematically study the effect of these clots on the cognitive decline of the Alzheimer's mice.
3. Schaffer, by the way, is advisor to Cornell doctoral candidate John Nguyen, who has developed an animal model for looking at the effect of small strokes in the tiny venules in the brains of rodents. They are using a laser and nonlinear optics to target and clot vessels of the venule system and then monitor the effect on blood flow in upstream capillaries in the brain. (FTuE3, Femtosecond Laser-Driven Photodisruption to Induce Single Venule Occlusions in Rodent Brain, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 9 a.m).
4. Later that morning, researchers from the University of Michigan will reveal an optical method to detect pancreatic cancer in patients at early stages -- an advance that could greatly improve the chances of patient surviva. They are using a multimodal optical spectroscopy approach to observe reflectance and fluorescence properties of pancreatic tissue samples. Spectral analysis has shown significant differences between normal, pancreatitis (inflammation) and cancerous tissues, thus suggesting non-invasive diagnostic possibilities. That work is described in presentation FTuK5, Modeling Reflectance and Fluorescence Spectra of Human Pancreatic Tissues for Cancer Diagnostics, (Tuesday, Oct. 21, 11:30 a.m.).
5. And while the conference will feature plenty more bio research, here’s the last one I’ll cover here: University of Indiana researchers will explain a new technique using near-infrared light that allows them to see blood flow within all capillaries of the light sensitive tissues in the retina at the back of the eye (FWW6, Constructing Human Retinal Capillary Maps from Adaptive Optics SLO Imaging, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 5:15 p.m.) This patient-friendly alternative to the current unpleasant diagnostic method relies on adaptive optics combined with a confocal scanning laser opthalmoscope.
I hope to see you at the show!
More information:
Frontiers in Optics 2008
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