Source: Biophotonics International

P.33-34

Technique allos optical activation of neural activity. Going longer in wavelenght could help reveal the hidden functioning of neuronal circuits. This is possible courtesy of a completely nonivasive optical method that a group of researchers at the University of California, Irvine, developed to identify, activate and detect the activations of specific group of cells.

Nota Bene: they used a Coherent femtosecond laser. Researcher: Samarendra Mohanty.

Source: Biophotonics International

A new generation of OCT instruments ups the ante in ophtalmology with fast image acquisition and higher resolution 3-D volumetric imaging.

See page 24-26

A noter: Carl Zeiss Meditec is holding more than 10 of the 40 patents with OCT in the title as of september 2007. The field is changing rapidly, however, as new companies join the fray. A handful of companies focus om high speed retinal imaging , icnluding Optovue of CA, Topcon of Tokyo, Optopol technology of Poland, Heidelbeg Engineering of Germany and Ophtalmic Technologies of Toronto. Carl Zeiss Meditec stills owned 30% of the market in 2006, and selling approximatively 1600 Cirrus instruments last year.

Source:optics.org

Newport has added device characterization and material science capabilities targeted at the photovoltaic market to its Technology and Applications Centre (TAC) in California, US. The new services complement the ongoing efforts of the company’s industrial applications laboratory, also in California, and its photovoltaic applications laboratory in Stahnsdorf, Germany, which are dedicated to developing new techniques and laser-based technologies to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of solar cell manufacture.

Source: optics.org

Ca se passe pas aux US, mais on en parle quand meme…

Hospitals could benefit from a new technique that uses ultra-short laser pulses to simplify radiotherapy equipment.

Researchers from Italy, France and Germany have shown that a tabletop laser can be used to accelerate a beam of electrons suitable for use in radiotherapy. The group, led by Antonio Giulietti of the Institute for Physical Chemistry Processes in Pisa, believes that such laser-based particle acceleration could considerably reduce the size and simplify the operation of radiotherapy facilities (Physical Review Letters 101 105002).

In radiotherapy beams of photons, electrons, protons, neutrons or ions are used to destroy tumours by ionizing the atoms within the tumours’ DNA. Usually this involves irradiating the patient from a number of different directions in order to pinpoint the tumour, and in the case of deep tumours, using higher-energy particles. This inevitably leads to some damage of the healthy tissue surrounding the tumour.

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Source:R&D magazine

New miniature image-capturing technology powered by water, sound, and surface tension could lead to smarter and lighter cameras in everything from cell phones and automobiles to autonomous robots and miniature spy planes.

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have designed and tested an adaptive liquid lens that captures 250 pictures per second and requires considerably less energy to operate than competing technologies.

The lens is made up of a pair of water droplets, which vibrate back and forth upon exposure to a high-frequency sound, and in turn change the focus of the lens. By using imaging software to automatically capture in-focus frames and discard any out of focus frames, the researchers can create streaming images from lightweight, low-cost, high-fidelity miniature cameras.

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Un article citant Imagine Eyes dans le cadre du projet INOVEO dansBio Optics World

The INOVEO project — which brings together 11 of France’s leading academic labs, high-tech companies and university ophthalmology departments — has a goal: Provide doctors with a novel device for clinical investigations into retinal disease. INOVEO was initiated two years ago, but recently took a large leap.

This summer, the first prototype of INOVEO’s retinal imaging system was delivered to the Hôpital Necker, a children’s hospital in Paris. The system incorporates the first of Imagine Eyes’ mirao 52-e Electromagnetic Deformable Mirror, released just this week; Imagine Eyes, maker of advanced ophthalmic medical devices that use wavefront and adaptive optics technologies, serves as coordinator of the INOVEO project. In contrast to other retinal imaging projects that use adaptive optics, the principal challenge for INOVEO was to develop a device that would enable cellular level retinal imaging in almost any eye ? even those presenting significant optical aberrations or having been affected by certain pathologies.

The INOVEO consortium members plan to use the project’s ultra-high resolution, adaptive optics flood illumination fundus camera to explore new frontiers in early diagnosis and treatment of retinal diseases. The project was awarded grants from both the ANR (Agence National pour la Recherche), which is one of France’s national research funding organizations, and the Retina France Association.

Source: Bio Optics World

No longer are optical tweezers systems limited to build it yourself researchers. Now available commercially, they enable real time, high resolution 3 D live cell imaging without perturbation.

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Source: Bio Optics WOrld

Pharmaceutical companies are using in vivo imaging techniques to speed drug development and testing - reducing time and costs to market.

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A noter: on y parle du CMIR (Center for Molecular Imaging Research) a Harvard/MAss General.

Source: BioOptics World

Michael Feld est un pionnier de la spectroscopie Raman a MIT, il a recu de nombreux prix

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Source: Bio Optics World

The LAsik market surgery is experiencing a decline.

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Source: Bioptics World

Life scientists have long used optical tweezers (..) to carry out manipulations of particle of micron size. Now several teams have begun to apply the technology in ultrasmall scale. Groups in Asia, Europe, and North America have used optical tweezers to measure bonds between proteins, to manipulate DNA chains and to probe blood cells.

A noter: aux Etats-Unis, il s’agit des equipes de Mark Williams a Northeastern University.

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Source:photonics.com

By coupling photothermal optical coherence tomography with tiny gold particles, bioengineers at Duke University said they can now peer so deep into living tissue that they can see molecules interacting.

Bioengineers at Duke University are using nanospheres of gold to create a photothermal optical coherence tomography (OCT) to witness the interaction of living molecules.

OCT, which has been called the optical equivalent of an ultrasound, is commonly used in medical clinics where imaging at the highest resolution is key. If successful, the researchers believe that their new approach can have a wide spectrum of clinical applications, from studying the margins of a tumor as it is removed from the body to assessing the effects of anti-cancer agents on the blood vessels that nourish tumors.

According to the researchers, these experiments represent the first time the technique has been extended to the functional imaging of cells expressing particular molecular receptors.

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Source: OPtics Express/Virtual Journal of Ultrafast Science

N’est-ce pas un article de Andreas Isemann de Femtolasers?

Targeted transfection of stem cells with sub-20 femtosecond laser pulse

Aisada Uchugonova, Karsten König, Rainer Bueckle, Andreas Isemann, and Gabriel Tempea

Multiphoton microscopes have become important tools for non-contact sub-wavelength three-dimensional nanoprocessing of living biological specimens based on multiphoton ionization and plasma formation. Ultrashort laser pulses are required, however, dispersive effects limit the shortest pulse duration achievable at the focal plane. We report on a compact nonlinear laser scanning microscope with sub-20 femtosecond 75 MHz near infrared laser pulses for nanosurgery of human stem cells and two-photon high-resolution imaging. Single point illumination of the cell membrane was performed to induce a transient nanopore for the delivery of extracellular green fluorescent protein plasmids. Mean powers of less than 7 mW (<93 pJ) and low millisecond exposure times were found to be sufficient to transfect human pancreatic and salivary gland stem cells in these preliminary studies. Ultracompact sub-20 femtosecond laser microscopes may become optical tools for nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine including optical stem cell manipulation.
Optics Express 16,9357-9364 (2008)

Source: Laser focus world

Ultrafast-laser systems often require optics that provide a time delay that varies depending on the wavelength of the light striking them–a property called group-delay dispersion (GDD). Such optics, which can take the form of prisms, gratings, or chirped mirrors, can be used to compress or stretch femtosecond pulses.

An improved chirped-mirror design developed by scientists in the Krausz group at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität-München and the Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik (both in Garching, Germany) has a high-enough group-—delay dispersion that it can be used for purposes traditionally reserved for prisms or gratings, such as chirped-pulse amplifiers (CPAs) or high-energy femtosecond-laser chirped-pulse oscillators (CPOs).¹

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Swiss drug giant Novartis AG’s new virology research facility, the Novartis Research Center of Excellence in Virology, opened its doors in Cambridge today. The center is expected to house 150 new employees by the end of next year.
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Courtesy: Mass High Tech

Source: Electro Optics

Micromachining is one of the fastest-growing industrial applications for lasers. Initially adopted as a more agile and rapid alternative to conventional technologies, laser micromachining is increasingly central to production of the next-generation of today’s fastest-growing new technologies, such as solar cells and biotech lab on a chip’ devices. Laser micromachining is displacing conventional technologies in these areas not only because it is simpler, cheaper and faster, but also because it is proving able to create the complex, detailed microstructures that conventional micromachining techniques are unable to provide.

Laser micromachining is typically performed by one of two methods. Excimer lasers use a mask in a similar way to laser lithography. This produces superior edge quality and throughput, and can handle complex patterns cleanly. DPSS and ultrafast lasers use a direct write method, which provides faster setup and easy integration to CAM systems. To know more, click here.

Source: biophotonics letter

French company Imagine Optic, a provider of Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensing technology, has teamed with the ICFO (Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, or Institute of Photonic Sciences) in Barcelona, Spain, to develop an ultrasharp multiphoton imaging system prototype that pushes the current technological limits of imaging devices in a project supported by a Marie Curie Industry-Academia Grant. “The development of high-resolution, nondamaging imaging techniques is crucial for understanding the biological processes occurring at the cellular level,” said ICFO group leader and project coordinator Pablo Loza-Alvarez. “The combined expertise of both partners will allow for a novel, compact and powerful tool within nonlinear microscopy which we expect will open up a new range of applications and commercial opportunities,” said Imagine Optic Business Manager Rafaël Porcar.

Source: emailing Fianium
Ultrafast fiber laser manufacturers, Fianium, have announced their latest ultrafast fiber laser offering - a low-cost, quasi-continuous-wave supercontinuum fiber laser source - the SC500-FC.

The SC500-FC offers MHz repetition rates, in excess of 0.25W average power and has a single-mode fiber- delivered output which can be spliced or connected to any system or device under test.

The SC500-FC has been developed to meet the growing need for quasi-continuous, turnkey broadband sources for component characterisation within the photonics sector. “Existing ‘white light’ sources rely on fairly narrow band SLEDs and ASE sources or Q-switched supercontinuum lasers which have issues with very low repetition rates in the KHz range,” commented John Clowes, Director of Business Development at Fianium in the UK. “The high repetition rate (20MHz) and brightness (greater than 100uW/nm) of the SC500-FC supercontinuum laser from Fianium eliminates those power and repetition-rate issues inherent to SLED and alternative Q-switched supercontinuum sources.”

Delivering a continuous optical spectrum spanning from below 500nm to beyond 2um, the SC500-FC incorporates a high power optical isolator which makes the technology immune to optical feedback and enables direct splicing of the single mode delivery fiber to devices, components and systems.

The SC500-FC is the latest addition to Fianium’s unrivalled range of supercontinuum and ultrafast fiber laser technology and is complementary to the company’s world-leading SC400 and SC450 ranges of modelocked supercontinuum laser systems. All Fianium lasers are air-cooled, maintenance free and computer controlled. Additional features include fast modulation, with sub-millisecond rise and fall times, enabling fast interlocking and integration into automated processes.

Source: optics.org

Newport has announced the steps it is taking to reduce its operating costs and improve its financial performance. These include outsourcing certain manufacturing processes, particularly in the company’s lasers division, to lower-cost sources in Asia, including the company’s new manufacturing facility in China. The company’s workforce will be reduced by 8-10% worldwide and administrative processes will be streamlined. The company expects these measures to improve operating profit by $11-14 million in 2009.

Source: Imagine Optic!

Coherent, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA, NASDAQ:COHR), today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell certain assets of Coherent’s Auburn Optics manufacturing operation to Research Electro-Optics, Inc. (Boulder, CO), a privately held optics manufacturing and technology company. Consistent with the asset transaction, Coherent and REO have entered into a strategic supply agreement whereby REO will provide optical manufacturing capabilities for Coherent, including fabrication and coating of optical components. The transition of the optics manufacturing assets from Auburn to Boulder will begin immediately and is expected to be completed no later than the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2009. Coherent will further discuss the transaction during its previously announced second fiscal quarter financial results conference call on April 24, 2008 at 1:30 P.M. P.T.

Source: photonics.com

Newport Corp. will move some of its laser and other manufacturing to China and eliminate about 200 jobs under cost-cutting moves expected to improve its operating profit by up to $14 million next year.

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Source: photonics.com

Lasers and optics maker Coherent Inc. laid off 144 employees at its Auburn, Calif., manufacturing operation and will close the facility by the end of the year.

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Source:Boston Business Journal

The Gutierrez Co. received approval to build a 600,000-square-foot biotech park called the Burlington Research Center.

The town of Burlington, Mass., granted the local developer permission to build the three-building biotechnology R&D and office park. The project, located at 43-63 South Ave., will also include a restaurant and retail space. The approval makes Burlington Research Center the largest development in the Route 128 marketplace to be cleared for biotech research and development use.

“This is great news to have the ability to provide new biotech space at the Burlington Research Center,” said Scott Weiss, managing director of commercial development at The Gutierrez Co., in a statement. “The governor is promoting biotechnology throughout the state and we applaud the town of Burlington for supporting the initiative and approving our project.”

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NIH funds nine institutes for collaborative research network
The NIH has awarded grants to nine institutes as part of its Molecular Libraries and Imaging Initiative, which aims to accelerate breakthroughs in disease prevention and treatment. Scripps Research Institute, which will get more than $80 million over six years, will use the money to find new molecular targets linked to diseases. The Burnham Institute for Medical Research will use its $97.9 million grant to fund research efforts at two sites. San Diego Business Journal (9/2)

Courtesy: BioSmartBrief

VC funding for biotech industry dwindles
The number of U.S. biotech companies with venture capital backing dropped by almost 50%, and the dollar amount invested in the industry declined by more than 40% from the first to the second quarter of 2008, according to Thomson Financial. Venture capital funding for the life science sector shifted more toward other life science firms as well as clean-energy businesses. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (9/1)

Courtesy: BioSmartBrief

Source: Laser Focus World

On a vu passer la press release d’HGH…

HGH Infrared Systems LWIR camera scans 360° every second

A long-wave infrared (LWIR) camera introduced by HGH Infrared Systems (Cambridge, MA and Igny, France) rotates once a second, capturing a new image each rotation with a 20° vertical and 360° horizontal field of view. The camera, which is housed in an environmentally sealed case, can be mounted on a building or vehicle, making it well-suited for security and surveillance uses. To know more, click here.