Courtesy of: Technology Review

The list of genes and proteins associated with cancer and other diseases is growing rapidly: earlier this month, for instance, scientists reported sequencing the whole genome of a cancer cell for the first time. A field called molecular imaging puts this information in context by letting scientists watch biological molecules in action inside diseased cells and tissues. Now researchers have found a way to let molecular imaging that uses near-infrared light peer deeper into the body. (More…)

Source: optics.org

Biophotonic applications look set to be the first beneficiary of a microstructured-fibre-based OPO that produces sub-100 femtosecond pulses.

A fibre optical parametric oscillator (FOPO) based on a 4.2 cm length of microstructured fibre that emits 70 fs pulses has been unveiled by researchers at the US universities of Cornell and California Merced. The system is said to deliver the shortest optical pulses reported for any FOPO and is a significant step towards making the technology commercially viable. (Optics Express 16 18050)

“The majority of OPOs are not portable and occupy a large footprint on an optical table,” Jay Sharping of Merced’s School of Natural Sciences told optics.org. “My motivation is to generate tunable pulsed light of sufficient output power in a portable fibre platform. This result is a step in that direction as it explores the generation of ultrafast laser light with tens of mW of average power.”

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Source: biooptics world

Nikon Instruments (Melville, NY) and Thorlabs (Newton, NJ) have collaborated to bring optical coherence tomography (OCT) to Nikon’s FN1 “PhysioStation” upright focusing nosepiece microscope system for neurophysiology and in vivo, small-animal studies. Designed for neuroscience and electrophysiology applications, the new OCT system enables an imaging depth of 2-3 mm in biological tissue with a larger field of view than in conventional microscopy.

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Source: photonics.com

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has licensed a patented “optical tweezers” technique for detecting and measuring very small concentrations of a biological substance, such as a virus on a surface.

NIST has issued a non-exclusive license for the technology to Haemonetics, a global health care company that provides blood management technologies for hospitals and blood and plasma collection agencies.

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Source: Photonics.com

More than 100 billion particles of antimatter have been created by using a short-pulse, ultraintense laser to irradiate a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin. The antimatter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma jet. “We’ve detected far more antimatter than anyone else has ever measured in a laser experiment,” said Hui Chen, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher who led the experiment. “We’ve demonstrated the creation of a significant number of positrons using a short-pulse laser.” This new ability to create a large number of positrons in a small lab could help researchers develop an understanding of the physics underlying various astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and gamma ray bursts.

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Courtesy of: FierceMarkets, Inc.

Novartis has gone out of its way to persuade analysts that it is going all out to advance new medications in its pipeline. There are 139 new projects in clinical studies, including 88 new molecular entities–a 40 percent increase over 2005. And four out of every five compounds that demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept in 2006/2007 are now either in Phase II or Phase III. (More…)

Source: Biooptics World

L’optique adaptative en premiere page du magazine!

For the first time, adaptive-optics imaging is practical for the clinic, promising earlier detection of eye disease and thus a dramatic reduction in vision loss. p.23-26. On y parle d’Imagine Eyes. Bravo!

Source: Laser Focus World

Photoconductive switch and photomixer technologies have been commercialized for terahertz applications and are improving with advances in the photoconductive materials and the ultrafast lasers that drive them.

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Source: Laser Focus World

IPG Photonics Corporation (Oxford, MA), manufacturer of high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers, reported that revenues for the third quarter of 2008 increased by 29% to $62.0 million. While revenue growth was driven by sales of fiber lasers for materials processing applications, which increased by 47% from the third quarter of 2007, management added some caution going into Q4 2008.

(…)”As we enter what promises to be one of the most challenging economic times in recent memory, we believe that IPG and its products are well positioned,” said Gapontsev. “We expect high power laser sales to remain strong in the fourth quarter. However, we expect that this strength will be offset by lower sales of our pulsed laser products in certain Asian markets. Also, the effect of a weakening Euro has lowered our estimates by approximately $3.0 million.”

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Source: Laser Focus World

There is little doubt that laser materials processing–the primary emphasis of the 27th International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO) 2009 (presented by the Laser Institute of America; LIA, Orlando, FL and held October 20-23 in Temecula, CA)–may suffer in the current economy. (…)

Many were bullish that the prospects for lasers as replacements for more conventional (and less energy efficient) technologies were fundamentally strong. Xiaoyan Zeng from Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China presented “Research and Development of Lasers and Laser Materials Processing Systems in the ‘Optical Valley’ of China” at the Business Forum and stated in the panel review that China viewed lasers as “conventional technology” in the < 25 W category.

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Source: Laser Focus World

Coherent (Santa Clara, CA) announced financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter (Q4) ended September 27, 2008. With net sales of $142.0 million in Q4 compared to net sales of $158.9 million for Q4 2007–an 11% drop, Coherent also announced plans for a “prudent” 5.5% work-force reduction, signaling difficult times ahead.

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Courtesy of: The Salt Lake Tribune

University of Utah researchers are going to be the first in the country to inject patients’ own stem cells into their hearts to treat two types of heart failure.

After drawing about 3 tablespoons of patients’ own bone marrow, researchers will grow cardiac-repair cells — believed to help heart muscles and improve blood flow — in culture for about 12 days. The cells that survive culture are healthier than the original ones extracted from the patient, said Amit N. Patel, director of cardiovascular regenerative medicine at the U.’s School of Medicine.(More…)

Courtesy: Yahoo News

Doctors may someday be able to use five genetic markers to assess whether a man is at high risk to develop prostate cancer, a new study suggests.

If reliable, these five “single nucleotide polymorphisms” (SNPs) would be especially important for black patients, or men of any race with a family history of prostate cancer. These two groups have a twofold to sevenfold increased chance of developing the disease, experts note.

The research is scheduled to be presented Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual conference on cancer prevention in Washington, D.C. (More…)

Source: HS daily wire
There is a growing interest in the detection capabilities of terahertz technology, and a Canadian company licenses an NIT-developed detection system that can be used to detect a continuous-wave (cw) THz signal

There is a growing interest in the potential of terahertz radiation, and we recently wrote about Goodrich choosing U.K. terahertz technology specialist TeraView for developing a DHS-sponsored chemical detection system for government and public buildings, and on the battlefield (see 20 October 2008 HS Daily Wire). We thus note with interest that Vancouver, British Columbia-based T-Ray Science, an emerging leader in the field of TeraHertz (”THz”) research, has just announced that with the exclusive patent license agreement that was reached with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, T-Ray has gained the rights to the only known coherent detection technique that can be used to detect a continuous-wave (cw) THz signal using THz photoconductive antennas as heterodyne receivers gated by a pair of frequency detuned cw laser modes.
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Source: BE de l’ADIT
Le gouverneur de Californie Schwarzenegger a annonce ce 6 novembre son plan pour faire face a la crise financiere. Il appelle a une reduction budgetaire massive de maniere a redresser le bilan financier de la Californie qui atteint un deficit de plus de 11.2 milliards de dollars.

Pour cela, le gouverneur propose une reduction des budgets alloues par l’etat de 4.5 milliards de dollars et une augmentation des taxes de maniere a recuperer 4.7 milliards de dollars. L’ensemble des universites se voit ainsi depouille de 132 millions de dollars, avec une coupe de 65,5 millions pour le systeme des “University of California” (UC system) et de 66,3 millions pour le systeme regroupant les “California State University”.
Pour en savori plus, cliquer ici.

Source: Photonics Spectra

Optics make lasers safer in the long run, p.53-54

et p.90-93: liste des grands telescopes pour lesquels les developpements de l’optique adaptative a un fort potentiel: Herschel, Magellan, Atacama (ALMA), James Webb, SAFIR, ATST, TMT, E-ELT, OWL, etc.

Source: photonics.com

OXFORD, Mass., Nov. 6, 2008 — Fiber laser and amplifier maker IPG Photonics Corp. reported Thursday that revenue for the third quarter increased by 29 percent to $62 million, driven by strong sales of its lasers for materials processing applications — up 47 percent from a year ago — as well as to North American, European and Asian markets.

Net income increased by 27 percent over the third quarter of 2007, to nearly $11 million, the company reported. For the first nine months of 2008, revenue increased 28 percent to $170.9 million from $133.6 million a year ago and net income increased by 28 percent to $27.6 million from $21.6 million in the same period last year.

“The industrial marketplace continues to embrace our fiber lasers as a more reliable, robust, efficient and flexible manufacturing solution that also provides the financial advantages of lower costs and higher throughput compared with conventional processes,” said Dr. Valentin Gapontsev, IPG Photonics CEO, adding that the materials processing market continues to be the company’s strongest revenue driver.

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Source: photonics.com

PSA Laser announced that Charles E. Cuneo has been appointed its president, replacing founder Jeffrey P. Sercel, who will continue on as chairman and chief scientist for the Manchester, N.H.-based company. Cuneo most recently served as executive vice president of executive management resources provider ERG Global. He has also served as president and COO of software company NeuMath Inc. and Unitek Benchmark, a manufacturer of hermetic sealing systems for microelectronics. Cuneo has also held management positions with several other technology companies in the Northeast, including Waters, Millipore, ADE, Credence Systems, and Teradyne. JPSA Laser manufactures ultraviolet, excimer, diode-pumped solid state, and ultrafast laser micromachining and beam-delivery systems for use in photovoltaic, semiconductor, biomedical and other industrial applications.

Source: optics.org

Going beyond pass/fail optics characterization The demand for higher quality images using small-diameter optics is fostering competition amongst manufacturers. Xavier Levecq of Imagine Optic tells OLE why its latest product allows industrial R&D teams to push new lens designs through to market more efficiently.

To read more, click here.

Courtesy of : BBC News

Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org has released a new site that tracks the incidence of flu in the US based on terms used in Google searches.

The system uses aggregated, anonymous results from searches for flu-related terms and plots their locations.(More…)

Courtesy of: San Francisco Chronicles

Biotech firms are preparing to argue against drug-price cuts and other reform in health care policy that are expected to be pushed by President-elect Barack Obama and his administration. Slashing drug prices during the financial crisis would further discourage investment in the industry, particularly in smaller companies working on treatments with uncertain prospects, BIO President and CEO James Greenwood said (More…)

Courtesy of: BBC

A team of Glasgow-based consultants has developed a groundbreaking technique for treating brain tumours. By molecular profiling a tumour sample, doctors can determine which therapy is likely to give the best results. Until now it had not been possible to identify whether a patient’s tumour would respond best to a course of chemotherapy or radiotherapy.The technique developed at Glasgow’s Southern General Hospital is attracting interest from around the world. (More…)

Courtesy of: Biospace

LSP (Life Sciences Partners) today announced the first closing of its fourth fund at € 75 mln. LSP IV is a venture capital fund dedicated to investments in private life sciences companies in Europe.

Founded in 1988 as a pioneer in life sciences venture capital, the LSP Group has grown to become one of Europe’s premier life sciences investors. The Group has raised over € 500 mln since inception and invests from its offices in Amsterdam, Munich, and Boston. The LSP Group invests in private companies as well as small cap public companies and spans the entire life science arena, including drug development, diagnostics, medical instruments, agriculture, food, cleantech and biofuels. (More…)

Source: Boston Business Journal

IPG Photonics Corp. reported sharply higher third quarter revenue and profits driven by strong sales to materials processing companies.

The Oxford, Mass.-based maker of fiber lasers and amplifiers (Nasdaq: IPGP) posted revenue of $62 million, up 29 percent year-over-year, and $10.9 million in net income, or 23 cents per share, up 27 percent from last year.

Analysts expected earnings of 21 cents per share on revenues of $59.3 million.

Laser sales for materials processors jumped 47 percent year-over-year, which IPG Photonics said was its strongest revenue driver.

The company expects revenues of $57 million to $62 million for the fourth quarter and earnings per share of 19 cents to 23 cents.

Courtesy of: The Economist

JOURNALISTS sometimes joke that the ideal headline for a science story would be something like “Black holes cure cancer”. Sadly, it will never happen. “Nanotechnology cures cancer”, though, is a pretty good runner-up, and that might just turn out to be true.

In fact, nanoparticles (ie, objects whose dimensions are measured in nanometres, or billionths of a metre) have been used to treat cancer for some time. But these treatments are mainly clever ways of packaging existing drugs, rather than truly novel therapies. For instance, Doxil, a medicine used to treat ovarian cancer, is wrapped up in naturally occurring fatty bubbles called liposomes. Taxol, a common breast-cancer drug, is similarly packaged with naturally occurring blood proteins in a product called Abraxane. In both, the packaging aids the delivery of the drug and reduces its toxic side-effects. (More…)

Courtesy of: New York Times

For the first time, researchers have decoded all the genes of a person with cancer and found a set of mutations that may have caused the disease or aided its progression.

Using cells donated by a woman in her 50s who died of leukemia, the scientists sequenced all the DNA from her cancer cells and compared it to the DNA from her own normal, healthy skin cells. Then, they zeroed in on 10 mutations that occurred only in the cancer cells, apparently spurring abnormal growth, preventing the cells from suppressing that growth and enabling them to fight off chemotherapy (More…)

Source: Biophotonics International Octobre 2008

The Quest for perfect vision, p.28 a 35, un article sur le LASIK

Mapping Molecular Highways, Second harmonic generation reveals polarity in neurons p.36-37 : on y parle de recherches menees a Cornell par Watt Webb.

Source: Laser focus World November

High Power swept Laser source targets OCT. p.22-26

Black Silicon emits Terahertz radiation, p.46-48

On vous a vus: la pub pour Pizzicato de Quantel en p.63

Source: optics. org

Zygo announced sales of $38.4 million and net income of $0.5 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2009, as compared with net sales of $31.7 million and a net loss of $0.9 million for the same quarter of last year. The sales increase was driven primarily by the company’s metrology division which contributed 72% of total revenues, although business in the display systems and instruments segments was also said to be strong. Weakness in the global economy impacted both sales and orders in the quarter, according to the company, which also indicated that the recently announced merger with ESI would help support further growth even in the current climate

Source: optics.org

Falling revenues from JDSU’s commercial lasers and optical communications businesses contributed to an overall decrease in revenues of 2.5% to $380.8 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2009. Operational changes and improved margins allowed the company to reduce its operating loss to $16.6 million from the $21.5 million reported for the same period last year.

Source:optics.org

Newport reported a loss of $1.1 million in Q3 2008, compared with a $5.5 million profit in the equivalent quarter last year. Sales fell by 3.6% to $105 million, attributed to weak macroeconomic conditions in the company’s target markets and in particular continuing weakness in the semiconductor equipment sector. Orders from photovoltaic customers rose slightly during the quarter, however, reaching $8.5 million. New orders from the photovoltaic sector amounted to over $30 million during the first three quarters of 2008, according to the company.

Source: Laser Focus World

Manufacturer of optical metrology instruments, 4D Technology (Tucson, AZ), has announced the introduction of the FizCam 2000 dynamic interferometer for measurement of general and meter-class optics. The FizCam 2000 is a high performance, Fizeau interferometer with a 12-inch (300 mm) aperture for accurate measurement of large-diameter, flat optics, such as those used in terrestrial and space-based astronomy, and surveillance, among other applications.
To know more, click here.

Source: BE de l’ADIT

Le National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), partie integrante du National Institute of Health, a annonce qu’il allait financer a hauteur de 11 millions de dollars sur 5 ans la creation de deux nouveaux centres de recherche de technologie biomedicale (Biomedical Technology Research Centers).

Ces centres offriront des technologies uniques et indispensables pour la recherche fondamentale, clinique et translationelle. Les projets qui y seront developpes combinent l’expertise technique et biomedicale de scientifiques issus de disciplines variees notamment grace a la mise en place de partenariats constructifs. Ces centres seront organises en 5 zones technologiques : imagerie, informatique, technologie optique et des lasers, technologie pour la biologie structurale, et technologie pour les systemes biologiques. L’un des deux nouveaux centres sera établi au Northern California Institute for Research and Education Inc. à San Francisco et l’autre à l’University of California de San Diego.

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