Beckman Laser Institute receives Air Force funding for wounded warriors project

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Photo by Laurel Hungerford

Renewed grant of $6.8 million to aid in development of optics-based trauma treatments

Irvine, Calif., June 11, 2020 — The Air Force Office of Scientific Research has granted $6.8 million in renewed funding to the Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic at the University of California, Irvine for an ongoing project to develop advanced medical technologies to aid warriors on the battlefield.

“This program is one of the longest continually funded initiatives in UCI history, having received its first grant in 1986 and totaling almost $30 million during its lifetime,” said Michael Berns, UCI’s Arnold and Mabel Beckman chair in laser biomedicine and distinguished professor of surgery, biomedical engineering, and developmental & cell biology. “The research ultimately can benefit all branches of the military, and there are significant portions that already have applications in civilian medicine.”

Titled “Advanced Optical Technologies for Defense Trauma and Critical Care,” the program integrates eight projects to develop potentially life-saving innovations for critical care evaluation and patient treatment. Another will specifically address traumatic brain injury.

Continuing until March 2023, the projects will fill device capability gaps in the Joint Forces Health Protection initiative under the U.S. Department of Defense.

The subprojects include:

  • Development of a non-invasive wearable sensor to provide continuous physiologic information;
  • Creation of wearable hemodynamic and metabolic sensors for critical-care assessment and the monitoring of lactate and other hemodynamic markers;
  • Modification of flow-enhanced pulse oximetry for improved patient monitoring in field conditions and during transport;
  • Development of a durable, compact blood-coagulation analyzer for real-time assessment;
  • Enhancement of a commercially available surgical camera invented by this program to quantitatively and non-invasively assess burns and wounds;
  • Invention of a functional optical coherence tomography tool to add airway compliance and ciliary function capabilities to the characterization of inhalation airway injury;
  • Validation of a hand-held, point-of-care wound infection and biofilm imaging device;
  • Innovation of an in-vitro assay system for structural and functional mechanisms of traumatic brain and spinal cord injury.

The Beckman Laser Institute will collaborate with the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research and the Air Force Research Laboratory on an ongoing basis to complete these goals. In addition, the Air Force funding will support laboratory facilities and an administrative core to service the project and provide for the filing of intellectual property rights for patent protection and commercialization plans.

The program has already led to the launch of start-up companies which market technologies for non- or minimally invasive imaging for different diseases and human conditions. These include Modulim (formerly Modulated Imaging), OCT Medical Imaging Inc. and Laser Associated Sciences, all of which are based in Irvine.

“UCI is ideally suited for this program with the unique translational design of the Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic, including its photonic incubator, along with resources and support of the UCI Beall Applied Innovation for commercialization of devices,” Berns said.

Read full UCI News press release.

UCI Surgeon, Diehard Ducks Fan Making a Difference During Pandemic

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by Kyle Shohara, AnaheimDucks.com

Though he tried as best he could, Dr. J. Stuart Nelson couldn’t fully disconnect from the world outside.

It was early March and when he and his wife were in the Maldives for their 35th wedding anniversary – a trip that, under any other circumstances, would’ve been a chance to unwind and enjoy the sights and sounds of the popular tourist destination nearly 10,000 miles from his Orange County home. Instead, the Laguna Niguel resident found himself checking the news every morning on TV and on his phone. He’d constantly get texts from his four kids keeping him updated on the latest developments from back home.

March would normally be a time Dr. Nelson’s at Honda Center cheering for his beloved Ducks. As an inaugural Orange Alliance member, he’s been attending Ducks games since 1993. He was in the house when Anaheim made its first Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2003 and again in 2007 when the Ducks became the first California team to win hockey’s ultimate prize.

It was during his time in the Maldives when the World Health Organization (WHO) made the assessment that COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic. The situation was rapidly evolving. Dr. Nelson knew the way things were before he and his wife left weren’t going to be the way they were when they returned.

They managed to return home on March 19, the day California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order to “protect the health and well-being of all Californians and to establish consistency across the state in order to slow the spread of COVID-19,” as stated on the State of California’s website.

“It was a weird thing to leave in the first week of March when everything was fine, and then come home to find out everything was closed,” says Dr. Nelson, Medical Director of UCI Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic and professor of surgery and biomedical engineering. “That was a shock.”

Dr. Nelson is engaged in full-time clinical practice at UCI Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic on the campus on UC Irvine, serving patients with pediatric port wine stain birthmarks, hemangiomas and other vascular malformations and skin disorders. But like many businesses in the state, his clinic was temporarily closed. “Since we’re an outpatient surgical clinic, we were closed for about six weeks,” he says. “We’ve since reopened on May 11. The clinic is up and functioning, but it’s a very different world now. We’re all wearing masks, face shields and personal protective equipment that we didn’t really need previously.”

While the clinic was closed, Dr. Nelson stayed busy. “I was doing two things,” he says. “I was continuing my research work, and as medical director, I was preparing to open the clinic again with all the new requirements the university had put in place so we could see patients safely.”

The biggest difference now than how it was in the past, Dr. Nelson says, is change. “Rather than me coming to greet my patient, it’s sort of an awkward introduction. I can’t see your face and you can’t see my face. We can’t shake hands. It’s a very strange thing to now go see a doctor.

“Before, that was one of the most personal things you can do. Now it’s become very distant. It just doesn’t have the same interaction. I miss shaking peoples’ hands and being able to see their faces, their facial features and their reactions. Now we can’t because everyone is covered by masks.”

There have been nearly two million COVID-19 cases reported in the United States as of June 8, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and more than 7,500 confirmed cases in Orange County, per the Los Angeles Times.

“We’re talking about a highly infectious virus,” says Dr. Nelson. “A virus that is really unknown to researchers. We’re talking about a virus that, as we sit here in early-June 2020, has no treatment or vaccination. I have tremendous respect for my emergency medicine and intensive care colleagues. They’re putting themselves in harm’s way every day. Many of my colleagues are putting themselves at great personal risk.”

Though the patients he sees are pre-screened and required to fill out a questionnaire prior to arrival, the work Dr. Nelson performs requires him to be within inches of them. “When I’m doing procedures on infants, young children and adults, I’m sitting six inches from them,” he said. “We’re all doing this. It’s one thing to say, ‘Maintain your social distance.’ But how do you do a surgical procedure from six feet away? I can’t do that. I have to touch the person and be right next to them.”

Patients having an anesthesia procedure or one requiring sedation are required to get a COVID-19 test within 72 hours of their procedure, he says. “It’s been a lot to assimilate and get organized, but we’re doing it, and we will continue to do it and do it well. We’ll provide the service that we need to provide for families.”

Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Dr. Nelson considers himself a hockey lifer. He was part of a sold-out crowd of 15,062 at Pacific Coliseum to witness the first game in Canucks history back on Oct. 9, 1970 against the LA Kings.

After moving to Southern California, Dr. Nelson admits he followed the Kings as a “peripheral fan.” That loose allegiance ended once the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim franchise was awarded by the NHL in December 1992. “The next day I called and signed up for season tickets,” he says. “I’ve been a season ticket holder since Day 1.”

He was elated when he heard the Ducks and UCI Health agreed to a multi-year partnership two years ago. As the “official hospital partner of the franchise,” UCI Health continues to serve as the club’s season presenting sponsor through the 2020-21 season. “I was glad when UCI partnered with the Ducks,” he says. “I was very happy. We’re the regional medical center and flagship hospital in the area. We should be the team taking care of the Ducks. It was the UCI team that took care of [St. Louis Blues defenseman] Jay Bouwmeester. It was a UCI cardiologist who implanted the [Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator (ICD)].”

Like other Ducks fans, Dr. Nelson has his eye on the upcoming NHL Draft Lottery on June 26. The Ducks have never held the first pick in any draft in the club’s 26-year history. “They’ve got a franchise goaltender in John Gibson,” Dr. Nelson says. “They have good, young defensemen. I’m hoping Trevor Zegras develops. We have two first-round picks in this draft. We need a kid who can come in and play the NHL game.”

Read full article on the Anaheim Ducks website.

Robert G. W. Brown Presented with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who’s Who

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Dr. Brown has been endorsed by Marquis Who’s Who as a leader in the fields of physics and engineering

IRVINE, CA, June 03, 2020/24-7PressRelease/ — Marquis Who’s Who, the world’s premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Dr. Robert G.W. Brown with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Brown celebrates many years experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who’s Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

Having accrued over 45 years of expertise in his field, Dr. Brown has most recently distinguished himself as a professor at the University of California Irvine in the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Center and a visiting professor in the department of computer science on campus since 2009. Throughout his career, he has taught at various additional institutions such as Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Nottingham, was a consultant for numerous companies and government research centers in the U.K. and the U.S., and held various other roles, including as principal scientist for Rockwell Collins Inc. between 2011 and 2015, where he led nano-plasmonic research activities. A multinational corporation company headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Rockwell provides avionics and information technology systems and services to government agencies and aircraft manufacturers.

Dr. Brown likewise found success as the chief technology officer at Ostendo Technologies Inc. from 2006 to 2009, a specialist displays company. Most recently, he served as the chief executive officer for the American Institute of Physics (AIP) between 2015 and 2017, in College Park, MD. A federation of physical science societies, the AIP advances, promotes and serves the physical sciences for the benefit of humanity.

Dr. Brown attended the University of London where he acquired a Bachelor of Science in physics in 1973. Pursuing additional studies, he later received a Doctor of Philosophy in engineering at the University of Surrey near London in 1983. An elected fellow of the American Physical Society, the U.K. Institute of Physics and the Institute of Electronic Engineers, Dr. Brown is also a member of the European Academy of the Sciences and Arts. Aligned with several boards and committees throughout his career, Dr. Brown was notably the vice chairman of the Tesla Foundation Board, was a board member of the AIP, and former microgravity experimental advisory board for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Additionally, he was active on the U.K. Home Office Science and Technology reference committee.

Specializing in lasers, photonics, nano-technology and photonic-medicine, Dr. Brown was responsible for inventing new nano-detector, electronic correlator, APD photo-detector, laser-diode, liquid-crystal display and optical-fiber technologies that have since been developed into successful products for experiments involving jet-engines, macromolecules, U.S. submarines and the space shuttle. He notably holds 55 patents. As a result of his years of research and accomplishments in his field, Dr. Brown has likewise authored or co-authored over 120 peer reviewed articles and research papers in scholarly journals. He is also currently the editor-in-chief of the Handbook of Optoelectronics through CRC Press and is the former four-time co-chairman of the OSA’s International Photon Correlation Conference and former co-editor-in-chief of several related special-issues of Applied Optics.

In recognition of his achievements, Dr. Brown received an MoD (Defense) Prize for Outstanding Technology Transfer in the U.K. and a Sharp Corporation Prize for Novel Laser-Diode Invention in Japan. His U.K. Institute of Physics team also received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2000 at Buckingham Palace in London. A celebrated Marquis listee, Dr. Brown has been included in the 70th edition of Who’s Who in America, the 12th edition of Who’s Who in Science and Engineering and the 33rd edition of Who’s Who in the World.

Read full press release.

Thomas Milner to Lead Beckman Laser Institute

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by Lori Brandt, UCI Samueli School of Engineering

The UC Irvine Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic has named Thomas Milner its third director. Milner, a pioneering developer of optical-based medical instrumentation, also will join the faculty in the departments of biomedical engineering and surgery, effective July 1, 2020.

Milner comes to UCI from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was the Joe King Professor at the Cockrell School of Engineering. Milner’s research involves development of novel optical tomographic imaging modalities and laser surgical procedures for diagnosis and treatment of disease. His inventions have helped physicians better detect and diagnose illnesses such as glaucoma and heart disease, and they have helped treat many dermatological conditions. He has published 187 journal articles, holds 55 issued U.S. patents and has started two technology companies. Milner is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery.

“I am very excited that Professor Milner has been selected to lead the Beckman Laser Institute,” said Zoran Nenadic, professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. “He brings a wealth of experience in the development of novel optical imaging techniques and laser surgical procedures for diagnosis and treatment of diseases. In addition to his academic record, he is a prolific inventor and entrepreneur. Besides his leadership role, Tom will make significant academic contributions to our department, and I look forward to working with him.”

“BLIMC is one of the world’s foremost centers in biophotonics and photomedicine,” said Milner, who spent five years at the Beckman Laser Institute in the early 1990s, first as a Whitaker Research Fellow (1992-94) then as a research assistant professor (1994-97), before moving to University of Texas in 1998. “It is an honor to be able to lead BLIMC into the next generation of transformative science and engineering to advance human health.”

Milner looks forward to leading BLIMC and participating in “a culture where innovation and translation is supported, encouraged and celebrated,” he said. “We want BLIMC to be recognized by industry as an excellent partner for both knowledge, intellectual property, scientific and engineering expertise, and as a source of students who wish to pursue industrial careers.”

Milner’s goals for the BLIMC include developing a strategic plan with input from various stakeholders including faculty, the medical school, industry, science, engineering and university administration. He also plans to establish an external advisory committee for the institute.

“I mostly look forward to working with a number of people of excellent character and vision who are working very hard to make our world a better place for all people,” he said.

Read the full UCI Samueli School of Engineering article.

Researchers Outside Medicine Have a New Focus: Covid-19

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by Jason Douglas and Max Colchester, The Wall Street Journal

Engineers, physicists, volcanologists and others who never dreamed they would work on a deadly pandemic are now part of the global effort to understand and contain the coronavirus

Rajat Mittal spent a decade exploring how our larynxes generate sound and the physics behind blood flow. Now the fluid dynamics expert is wholly absorbed in a new scientific quest: to understand how droplets of moisture spread the new coronavirus from person to person.

“It seems to intersect with everything I’ve trained for all my professional life,” he said.

Researchers who never dreamed they would be working on responses to a deadly pandemic are redirecting their expertise to the global effort to understand and contain Covid-19. While virologists and epidemiologists pore over the new coronavirus and the disease itself, other experts are focused on critical questions about managing society as governments world-wide ease restrictions on daily life to revive comatose economies.

Engineers are helping public-health officials figure out how transmission of the virus can be suppressed in mass-transit systems, office blocks and theme parks. Academics who have learned how to make snap judgments on life-or-death decisions are drawing up advice for policy makers.

An algorithm tuned to air pollution is being repurposed to track social distancing. A team at the University of California, Irvine, is researching whether components from Blu-ray video players can be used as ultraviolet lasers to disinfect surfaces.

“There’s a buzz about, what can thinking minds do about it?” said Mr. Mittal, a professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, whose focus now is on designing more effective face masks. “How can I take what I know and turn it around and use it to attack this disease?”

The mobilization comes as restrictions on daily life ease around the globe, prodding policy makers to seek out a wider set of experts to shape the post-Covid world than the epidemiologists who have dominated so far.

“It would be nice to have a little bit more of a balanced perspective,” said Mark Birkin, co-director of the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics in the U.K., who is building a computer model that aims to show how loosening lockdown measures affects social interactions.

The new coronavirus has infected more than five million people world-wide and killed more than 340,000, according to the World Health Organization. The stringent measures restricting work and travel imposed by governments to stop its spread have cratered the global economy. The International Monetary Fund expects the world economy to contract by 3% this year, led by record-breaking falls in output in the U.S. and Europe.

With the disease better contained, although not eliminated, governments are easing lockdowns to get people back to work. But absent a vaccine or widespread immunity to infection, that revival poses a multitude of challenges around how people can safely interact at schools, offices and factories without inadvertently giving the virus a chance to proliferate again.

Such questions are prompting experts from diverse fields to drop what they were doing and refocus on Covid-19.

Until recently, James Walsh was fine-tuning a complex computer model to map air pollution in London. Now the researcher at the London-based Alan Turing Institute is working on models to determine whether people are respecting social-distancing rules aimed at limiting transmission of the virus.

“It’s never really been my expertise to work in anything relating to biological viruses or anything of that form,” said Mr. Walsh.

Michael Batty, a professor of planning at University College London, has been building computer models of cities since the 1970s, figuring out such things as how to keep people moving if a subway line breaks down. Now he wonders whether our cities and buildings will need to be redesigned altogether.

“Nobody has ever looked at a situation where everything breaks,” he said. Mr. Batty is coordinating research sponsored by the U.K.’s Royal Society looking into how people arrive at, move within, and exit small spaces such as railway stations and supermarkets, with the goal of figuring out ways to keep people safe.

A preliminary concern: One-way systems to steer shoppers around grocery aisles may not be the right answer, since some evidence suggests it keeps people inside stores longer, raising the likelihood of close contact with others, he said.

Jessica Fanzo, professor of global food and agricultural policy and ethics at Johns Hopkins, is racing to figure out how the pandemic is affecting food supplies in low-income countries. “It is a moment to pause and figure out how we can readjust and make for a more resilient world,” she said.

The eruption of Covid-19 in China last year has triggered a flood of research that continues to pour online and fill the pages of scientific journals world-wide. Doctors and disease experts are still trying to pin down exactly how lethal the virus is, figure out how many people have had it, and come up with a vaccine. For every robust finding adding to our understanding of the bug, there are dozens of questionable claims spreading on social media. Policy makers are under pressure to act quickly despite the uncertainty.

Willy Aspinall, emeritus professor of volcanology at the University of Bristol, learned how to synthesize expert judgments using advanced statistical techniques during two decades advising ministers on the Caribbean island of Montserrat about the risks of a volcanic eruption. He believes such techniques could help policy makers feel their way through the next, uncertain stages of the pandemic with better advice, and is piloting a study looking at reopening schools.

“People are looking over their shoulder and asking, ‘What the hell can volcanologists tell us?’ Actually, we’ve got quite extensive experience managing scientific uncertainty in decision support,” he said.

Such unexpected links between public health and other fields are popping up again and again.

Michael Kinzel, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Central Florida, is working on a cough drop that alters saliva to prevent the formation of the fine aerosolized droplets that transfer the virus from an infected person deep into the lungs of a new victim. A postdoctoral colleague in the project has been sniffing pepper in isolation to induce sneezes as part of the research.

The idea came to him after his wife, a virologist, in a Facebook argument with neighbors, explained this method of transmission. In a lifetime spent poring over aircraft design, he knew a lot about making liquid fuels into fine particles to better ignite in a jet engine. “What we’re doing is the exact opposite,” he said.

Mr. Kinzel sees in the pandemic the promise of one of those rare moments when cross-pollination between academic fields leads to big leaps in knowledge. “It helps force people to look outside the box,” he said.

Read the full Wall Street Journal article.

Blue-ray disc lasers could help kill the coronavirus, according to UC Irvine researchers

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by Ben Brazil, Daily Pilot
Photo by Steve Zylis, UCI

Not only can Blu-ray lasers replay the “Harry Potter” series 50 times over, they may possibly help kill the coronavirus.

UC Irvine researchers are investigating whether the lasers inside Blu-ray players can be used as a disinfectant to fight the spread of the deadly virus.

UCI professor Chris Barty, who is leading the research team, envisions lasers in ventilation systems disinfecting the air, lasers as small as a key fob that could be used to sanitize hands and lasers built into face masks that clean the air as it filters through.

“You can imagine many many ways you could deploy the technology if it’s cheap enough,” Barty said.

When combined with special crystals, the Blu-ray lasers can convert to UVC light, which has been shown to be effective at eliminating microbes. UVC has been used in the past to kill germs, including by hospitals. But Barty’s method may be much more efficient and cost-effective.

Barty said Blu-ray disc lasers have to be high quality because they need to read a lot of information in the disc player.

“If we can get the 10% to 20% conversion of the Blu-ray light into UVC, then this is really very different than what the current methods of generation are,” Barty said. “Factors of 10 to 100 more output per dollar.”

Hospitals currently use robots to sterilize rooms but in addition to UVC, they also give off UVA and UVB lights, which are dangerous for humans. Barty said the rooms have to be cleared before the robot can begin sterilizing.

Though UVC light is powerful, Barty said the tears in a person’s eyes and dead skin cells are enough to absorb and protect people from the harmful light rays.

The lasers his team is working on could be a cost-effective alternative for hospitals.

“You won’t need a $100,000 robot then to clean your hospital,” Barty said.

Barty’s team is made up of five graduate students, two undergraduates and one post-doctoral student. The group is currently waiting on all the parts to arrive before they can get fully started on the study. They do have some of the laser diodes, but it will take a month or so for the crystals to arrive.

“Some time in midsummer, we are going to be generating UVC,” Barty said.

There are currently several companies online selling UV light wands, claiming they can sterilize surfaces better than other sources, though Barty said the products aren’t very powerful. It would take several minutes of exposure to sterilize a cell phone.

“You have to have enough light to be useful and in an economic range that makes sense for wide deployment,” Barty said.

Read full Daily Pilot article.

UCI physicists say Blu-ray diode lasers could be used to help sterilize COVID-19

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Physicists at the University of California Irvine said the next weapon against COVID-19 may be sitting in your home inside your Blu-ray Disc player. Chris Barty, a professor of physics and astronomy at UCI, is leading the research. “The Blu-ray diode laser itself, the one that’s in your player, doesn’t kill the virus, doesn’t sterilize the virus. But modifying it with non-linear optics, with something that laser people do, would allow to create light that does kill the virus,” Barty said.

Watch ABC7 News broadcast.

Physicists exploring use of Blu-ray disc lasers to kill COVID-19, other viruses

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by Brian Bell, UCI

A new weapon in the arsenal against the coronavirus may be sitting in your home entertainment console. A team led by physicist Chris Barty of the University of California, Irvine is researching the use of diodes from Blu-ray digital video disc devices as deep-ultraviolet laser photon sources to rapidly disinfect surfaces and the indoor air that swirls around us.

Barty, UCI Distinguished Professor of physics & astronomy, said that such UV light sterilizers would be cheap compared to current medical- and scientific-grade systems and that it’d be possible to deploy them almost anywhere.

“If these sources are successful, I think you could build them into a mask and clean the air that’s coming in and out of you,” he said. “Or you could set these things up in the air circulation ducts of major buildings, and the airflow that goes through could be sterilized.”

They could also function in hand-held wand devices, Barty said, or as a “light curtain” through which people walk as they enter a room, exposing them to UV-C radiation. He noted that at this wavelength – between 200 and 260 nanometers – UV radiation will destroy viruses and other pathogens but poses minimal risk to humans.

“There is evidence to suggest that the UV-C band is actually not an issue for us, especially at the shorter wavelengths, because it gets absorbed by dead skin cells or by a teardrop on your eye,” said Barty, head of UCI’s Convergent Optical Sciences Initiative.

“Hospitals use UV-emitting robots that are about the size of a dorm room refrigerator. They just wheel them in and plug them into the wall to sterilize the place, but everybody has to leave because in addition to UV-C, they make a lot of UV-A and UV-B, which can cause harm to humans.”

The cost of these roaming hospital sterilizers – that are based on high-current mercury discharge lamps – is too high for deployment at the scale that may be needed to combat the coronavirus, present everywhere from cruise ships to meatpacking plants. Barty said that Blu-ray diode lasers offer a potential path to a compact, economical solution, since the technology is ubiquitous and priced in the range of tens of dollars per unit.

His team is developing a way to halve the wavelength of photons emitted by Blu-ray diodes – which is around 405 nanometers – to the germicidal UV-C band.

“This is really more of an applied physics versus a pure physics view of the world,” he said. “The issue is not whether you can make UV-C light. It’s whether you can fundamentally reduce the dollar-per-watt output of a device to a place that it becomes compelling to use UV-C light.”

According to Barty, Blu-ray sterilizers could be made in the “same kind of quantities as you can make other telecommunications components, so you could really change the game.”

Looking at the current landscape, in which there’s an all-hands-on-deck effort to develop vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infections and drugs to treat people sick with the virus, Barty observed: “I would prefer that we just destroy it.”

This project and many other currently active UCI-based initiatives to confront the coronavirus are being tracked at https://oc-covid19.org.

Read the full article on phys.org.

Chen awarded SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship

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by Lori Brandt, UCI Samueli School of Engineering

May 21, 2020 – Samueli School biomedical engineering graduate student researcher Jason Chen has been awarded a 2020 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship ($3,000) from SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, for his potential contributions to the field.

Chen’s research involves developing innovative optical methods to functionally view and assess the upper airway, eye and coronary arteries. As a doctoral candidate, Chen works in the Functional Optical Coherence Tomography Lab of Zhongping Chen, professor of biomedical engineering. He collaborates closely with Dr. Brian Wong, professor of otolaryngology, and Dr. Andrew Browne, assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology.

“I am very grateful for the insightful guidance from my research advisers as well as the support from the BME and BLI leadership,” said Chen. “I want to give my appreciation to my colleagues and friends, who spend days and nights in the lab with me to push our research forward. This scholarship will provide me additional opportunities for traveling to conferences and attending advanced seminars, and I will do my best to become a better scientist in the field of biophotonics.”

Chen is one of 78 students to receive the SPIE education scholarship this year. Since it began, SPIE has distributed over $6 million dollars in individual scholarships, reflecting the society’s commitment to the next generation of optical scientists and engineers around the world.

Read full UCI Samueli School of Engineering article.

Lumitron Technologies: Building the X-ray of the Future

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by Jessie Yount, Orange County Business Journal

INNOVATION: LASER-BASED FIRM LANDS IN IRVINE, RAISES $34M TO FIGHT CANCER

A 30-person company in the heart of Irvine plans to commercialize a new type of X-ray platform, one that it calls the biggest breakthrough in the imaging industry since the X-ray was invented in 1895.

Lumitron Technologies Inc. is developing products for medical and industrial imaging, with a stated goal of building its first commercial imaging system by the end of the year.

The technology that Lumitron is using is built upon nearly 20 years of federally funded research totaling $220 million.

The 7-year-old company recently completed a $34 million Founder’s round of financing with backers including Newport Beach’s Roth Capital Partners; it expects it to be the only round of private capital before bringing the technology to market.

Among the many possibilities for the technology, Chief Executive and Chief Technology Officer Chris Barty said his mission for the company is to “find, detect and treat cancer in ways that no one has been able to do before.”

Barty said other potential uses of the company’s imaging products include certification for additive manufacturing parts.

1,000x

X-ray machines today are largely made the same way as they were first discovered.

Barty explained, “You take electrons and slam ‘em into metal. As the x-rays pass through the body, dense structures like bones absorb the X-ray beam and produce a shadow to show you your broken rib.”

Lumitron’s HyperView platform, on the other hand, uses a new type of high-energy light source (called a laser-Compton) to recreate the power of a synchrotron device—a particle acceleration machine about the size of a football field that speeds up electrons to nearly the speed of light—in a device the size of a modern CT scanner.

The synchrotron was invented in 1945 and uses magnets to accelerate particles. Due to its large size and half-billion-dollar price tag, it’s not a commercially scalable invention.

There are currently 60 in existence around the world and scientists typically get one week out of a year to conduct studies using the device.

“It’s a common story,” Barty said. “There are a number of studies conducted on synchrotrons that are very compelling from a medical perspective, but completely impractical from a clinical perspective because it takes a year to get time on a synchrotron.”

Lumitron’s product offers the same capabilities in a much smaller and more cost efficient device, providing up to 1,000 times the resolution of a traditional X-ray machine while producing significantly less harmful dose to the patient.

Barty said, by way of example, that if you were looking at a view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Marin County (about 30 miles north of the bridge), and magnified it by 1,000 times, you could see the stitching of a Bentley logo on the seat inside of a car, while it was driving along the bridge.

He added, “From that perspective, when you start talking about medical applications—it’s really a very transformational event.”

Research Possibilities

Because its platform can see down to the cellular level, the possibilities for cancer discovery and treatment using the HyperView platform are particularly compelling, according to the company.

For example, “There’s a debate right now about the screening process [for mammograms] and whether it prevents or causes cancer because of the exposure to radiation,” Barty explained.

He continued, “With our device, the radiation dose is 100 times lower, so you’d have to get 100 more mammograms for it to be an issue.”

Lumitron’s device would also make the experience more comfortable for women and increase the likelihood of accurate results over time, because the machine doesn’t depend on a technician placing metal plates around the area of the body that needs an X-ray.

In addition to reduced risk for cancer screenings, Lumitron’s platform offers treatment options for cancer patients.

Currently, oncologists treat cancer by adding a radioactive element to a drug, which attaches to cancer cells via proteins that it creates as it grows in the body.

The problem with this type of treatment is twofold: the radiation is known to accumulate elsewhere, like the lymph nodes and pituitary glands, and once the cancer is gone, the radiation doesn’t just leave the body.

The HyperView platform is designed to identify any element on the periodic table and use non-radioactive elements such as gold to detect and treat cancer—without introducing radioactive elements or ever moving the human body, according to Barty.

Other applications include mining rare earth metals—such as the materials needed to power rechargeable batteries in Tesla cars and other electric vehicles—and screening additive manufacturing parts for aviation and aerospace needs.

The company’s first priority is medical applications, Barty said.

National Security

Barty received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in applied physics from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, physics and chemical engineering from North Carolina State University.

He went on to serve as faculty for Stanford University and led a research organization at the University of California-San Diego.

He then developed the core technologies for Lumitron as chief technology officer for the laser directorate of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), one of three nuclear labs owned by the federal government and housed under the Department of Energy.

He initially set out to develop an X-ray system for national security, with the goal to prevent terrorists from smuggling uranium-235 into the country.

Barty is the sole inventor for about 80% of the company’s core technologies and co-creator of the additional 20%.

He met co-founder and Executive Chairman Maurie Stang through a mutual acquaintance in 2013.

Lumitron was born soon after, though it took another three years to acquire the rights to license the technology.

In 2017, Lumitron finally acquired the commercial rights to license its laser-based technology from the government and Barty departed LLNL the following year.

Medtech Corridor

Barty intended to build Lumitron near LLNL in Pleasanton.

When the University of California-Irvine came knocking, he was still set on Pleasanton for its close proximity to talent.

Then “I spent three days on a recruitment trip, and after a day and a half, it became very clear that it was better for us to build the company here, where the end user is,” Barty said.

Barty cited the UCI Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in OC, as one such example.

Another highlight: the university’s entrepreneurial tech-transfer branch, UCI Beall Applied Innovation.

“There isn’t an entity like Applied Innovation elsewhere,” said Barty, noting its uniqueness even compared to his alma mater Stanford.

“It’s quite remarkable, and it’s not UCI centric. It tries to view itself as a growth hub for OC,” Barty said.

He said recruitment has been a breeze for the business; the company has yet to write a job post and has found talent from both Livermore and OC’s medtech corridor.

Barty was given joint appointments at UCI’s School of Physical Sciences and School of Medicine. He also leads the Convergence Optical Sciences Initiative at the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, which aims to commercialization optics and photonics technologies for human health.

Other local activities focused on oncology include the City of Hope campus at the Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine, with a stated $1 billion investment.

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian is also reportedly working to expand its cancer network, and Keck Medicine of USC plans to build a new cancer clinic close to Hoag’s Newport Beach hospital (see story, page 9).

Commercial Opportunities

Lumitron isn’t worried about the technical capabilities of its platform.

Commercial activities rather hinge on the company’s ability to take enough cost out of manufacturing to reach an individual purchasing price point—something the company is working to improve and perfect, Barty said.

Once the device reaches clinical markets, it will compete with modern MRIs, which go for about $3 million today, added Barty.

Prior to regulatory approvals, the company’s first commercial markets are early adopters, hospitals and university researchers who will pay a much higher price because they value the technology for the ability to publish research papers and make discoveries.

“From that perspective, we have a very compelling value proposition,” Barty said. “If you take just 10% of the 16,000 or so research hospitals in the world, you have more than a $10 billion market.”

The company also plans to make a second device, the only difference being a higher voltage machine, for industrial purposes down the line.

Looking Ahead

Lumitron recently closed a $34.4 million Founder’s round. The round had a $150 million pre-money valuation, according to a Business Journal estimate.

Singapore-based Vickers Venture Partners led the completion of the Founder’s round. Other participants included Roth Capital, as well as Perennial Value Management and Clinton Capital, both in Australia, and several global family offices.

There were no preferred stock terms; all investors took common stock terms, said Barty.

He said the company “is pretty much done raising funds” and will look to public markets for future financing, noting that Vickers is particularly good at helping companies go public.

Lumitron’s headquarters at UCI Research Park is now in the process of expanding from 15,000 square feet to 22,000 square feet.

The extra 7,000 square feet of space, which is still moving ahead with construction, is allocated for on-site manufacturing, which the company aims to keep local and provide research access to UCI faculty and staff.

Read the full Orange County Business Journal article.

* The article above reflects corrections to the inaccuracies of the original published Orange County Business Journal article.