Inside the Beckman Laser Institute

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Why's this student bending over? He's showing us how the instrument on his head can give scientists instant feedback on the level of oxygen in his brain.

He's at California's Beckman Laser Institute-which is dedicated to making optics reach their full potential for medical tests and treatments.

The laser our student's demonstrating beams near infrared light all the way to his brain. That light interacts with oxygen carriers in his blood- and gives researchers a computer readout. When he leans forward, the instrument can immediately tell that the level of oxygen in his brain is going up.

This is just one of many instruments that researchers at the Beckman Institute hope will someday make their way to a doctor's office near you.

They're also looking at applications closer to the body's surface- the skin.
This instrument is designed to image the skin up to about a millimeter deep. It's still a prototype, but dermatologists might be able to use it to examine skin lesions without having to slice them out of the body first.

And Beckman's graduate students have built systems, like this one that includes this white box, which can image the level of oxygenation in tissue. This can help researchers look at trauma, such as burns or bruising, or also to examine the level of oxygenation in tissue that is going to be transplanted from one part of the body to another.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• spectroscopy
• optics
• diagnostics
• medicine
• medical
• light
• lasers
• infrared
• chemie