Bruce Tromberg (right), director of the Beckman Laser Institute, and UCI oncologists John Butler, David Hsiang and Rita Mehta (from left) are evaluating a breast imaging device that produces metabolic “fingerprints.”

In 2003, researchers at UC Irvine’s Beckman Laser Institute received a $7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to standardize use of a laser imaging device they had created for better detection and diagnosis of breast cancer. The investment is beginning to pay off.

In January, the researchers reported in the journal Radiology that this laser breast scanner can accurately distinguish between malignant and benign growths, possibly offering an easy, noninvasive way to tell whether breast tumors warrant aggressive treatment. The study involved 60 subjects and will be replicated with a larger test group.

Developed by Beckman Laser Institute director Bruce Tromberg and assistant researcher Albert Cerussi, the handheld laser breast scanner employs a sophisticated new analysis method devised by UCI biomedical engineering professor Enrico Gratton and graduate student Shwayta Kukreti that produces a spectral “fingerprint” of each patient.

Unlike mammograms, the scanner provides detailed metabolic information by measuring hemoglobin, fat and water content, as well as tumor oxygen consumption and tissue density. In the study, researchers found that potentially dangerous malignant tumors and benign tumors have different metabolic fingerprints.

“The scanning method could improve detection in women with dense breast tissue who don’t do well with mammography,” says UCI surgical oncologist Dr. David Hsiang, who collaborated on the study. “It doesn’t require added contrast agents and can help make diagnosis more exact and treatment more focused.”

Younger women typically have dense breast tissue, and since breast cancer in that demographic is often more deadly, early detection is critical.

Separately, the UCI laser breast scanner is proving beneficial in evaluating the effectiveness of chemotherapy by supplying detailed data on changes in breast tumor metabolism during treatments. This information, which can be accessed quickly at bedside, lets oncologists tailor chemotherapy based on how a patient responds.

“The use of chemotherapy for tumor reduction prior to surgery is important with certain types of breast cancer,” says UCI surgical oncologist Dr. John Butler. “The metabolic fingerprint the scanner provides indicates how the chemotherapy is working and allows doctors to adjust treatments as needed.”

Currently, Beckman Laser Institute researchers are collaborating with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, UC San Francisco and Massachusetts General Hospital on a planned five-center clinical study of the device’s utility in chemotherapy. (In addition, the Bay Area biotechnology company FirstScan has licensed it for commercial applications.)

“This is a valuable opportunity to standardize our approach and determine – in a national multicenter trial – how this new technology can best enhance treatment and quality of life for breast cancer patients,” Tromberg says.

via UC Irvine Feature: Breast Tumor.

”With LIMO technology we were able to get 50% higher current in our photovoltaic applications with multi-crystalline silicon thin film solar cells. For the first time we demonstrated an error free production of this new cell type. With this result we have opened the doors for industrial use of this highly efficient solar cell,” said Dr. Fritz Falk from IPHT. Besides the higher efficiency of the solar cells the coating quality was also enhanced.

The L³ LIMO Line Laser technology offers the advantages of laser crystallization without heating the substrate and shorter cycle time per panel (< 30 s).

via Laser increases solar cell efficiency – OptoIQ.

An ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester. The process could make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper and radiating a more pleasant light than a fluorescent bulb can.

The laser process creates a unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament—the tiny wire inside a light bulb—and theses structures make the tungsten become far more effective at radiating light.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

More from University of Rochester

via Gates Budget Plan Reshapes Pentagon’s Priorities – NYTimes.com.

via Stars and Stripes.

Using equipment costing about $80, researchers from Inverse Path were able to point a laser on the reflective surface of a laptop between 50 feet and 100 feet away and determine what letters were typed.

Chief Security Engineer Andrea Barisani and hardware hacker Daniele Bianco used a handmade laser microphone device and a photo diode to measure the vibrations, software for analyzing the spectrograms of frequencies from different keystrokes, as well as technology to apply the data to a dictionary to try to guess the words. They used a technique called dynamic time warping that’s typically used for speech recognition applications, to measure the similarity of signals.

Line-of-sight on the laptop is needed, but it works through a glass window, they said. Using an infrared laser would prevent a victim from knowing they were being spied on.

via Sniffing keystrokes via laser and keyboard power | Security – CNET News.

via: Danger Room from Wired.com.

In a lab in this Seattle suburb, researchers in long white coats recently stood watching a small glass box of bugs. Every few seconds, a contraption 100 feet away shot a beam that hit the buzzing mosquitoes, one by one, with a spot of red light.

via Rocket Scientists Shoot Down Mosquitoes With Lasers – WSJ.com.

via Danger Room from Wired.com.

Carroll says the system puts two lasers across the road and counts traffic as the vehicles cross the lasers. She says they decided on this system because it would be costly to have to shut down and tear up the road to install the traditional loops under the roadway that measure traffic. Caroll says its’ called the “AxleLight” laser system and is able to tell the type of vehicle by the number of wheels and the distance between each wheel.

via Radio Iowa: DOT uses lasers, turbine to count traffic.