BOTHELL – Aculight Corp. has secured rights to laser technology that one day may help quiet constant muscle tremors or dramatically speed up treatment for a range of diseases.
The Bothell company’s licensing agreement with Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University gives Aculight intellectual property related to the optical stimulation of neural tissue.
That technology is at the heart of an infrared neural stimulator the company began selling last year. That’s the first product Aculight’s developed specifically for the medical research market.
“We’ve been jointly developing this technology together with Vanderbilt and negotiating the licensing at the same time,” said Andrew Brown, Aculight’s director of business development.
Neuroscientists use nerve stimulation to study nervous system functions and to research diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s. Neural stimulation is also used for clinical uses, including the treatment of chronic conditions such as pain and depression and the reduction of tremors from Parkinson’s disease.
But Aculight’s nerve-stimulation laser can be targeted more specifically in the body than electrical stimulators. That means it can be more precisely aimed to affect only small parts of the brain or individual nerves.
At Vanderbilt, researchers have experimented with it to stimulate individual sciatic nerves in rats. The same thing should be possible in humans. Researchers in Chicago also are testing the medical laser on inner ear nerves to treat hearing loss.
Last month, the growing laser company moved from north King County to a 47,000-square-foot headquarters in Bothell’s Canyon Park.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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