BOTHELL – The same laser technology that Aculight Corp. uses in radar and other defense and aerospace technologies may one day help people with Parkinson’s disease live without constant tremors.
Harnessing a laser’s beam of light to stimulate nerves in the body also could greatly improve people’s hearing and just maybe help regenerate movement in paralyzed limbs.
It’s not a new idea – electrical stimulation of nerves has been used for decades. It turns out, however, that a laser can do it better in many cases.
“Definitely, the possibilities are exciting,” said Jonathon Wells, a biomedical engineering graduate student at Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University, where much of the research with Aculight’s lasers is taking place. “It offers some advantages that the standard electrical methods of stimulation can’t overcome.”
Patients with Parkinson’s, a nervous system ailment characterized by involuntary body tremors, can get some relief through the use of electrical stimulation.
But the electrical signal can’t be targeted well. The tremors might stop, but the patient’s speech ability is affected by the stimulation.
A fiber laser, which focuses the light through fiber optics, can be more precisely aimed to affect only small parts of the brain or individual nerves, said Mark Bendett, Aculight’s director of medical projects.
“Instead of twitching an entire foot, you can twitch a toe at a time,” he said.
That’s not an esoteric example. At Vanderbilt, researchers have done exactly that with laser stimulation on the sciatic nerves of rats. The same thing is possible in humans, Bendett said.
At Northwestern University in Chicago, researchers are using Aculight’s lasers on inner ear nerves to improve hearing.
“We can create hearing that’s more similar to true sound than cochlear implants can create,” Bendett said.
Pushing the cutting edge of medical applications for lasers is one way Aculight continues to expand at an impressive rate.
From 2001 to 2005, the privately held company’s revenue grew by 123 percent. In its 13-year history, the company incurred losses for two years.
The staff also is growing, now at more than 75, up 15 percent from last year. For more office and manufacturing space, the 13-year-old company is moving in January from a 29,000-square-foot space in south Bothell to 47,000 square feet in Canyon Park in Snohomish County.
Don Rich, Aculight’s chief executive officer, said the company has focused more in recent years on taking its great research ideas and turning them into real-world products. That admittedly limited the company in its first few years.
Rich, a former U.S. Navy officer, had gained years of experience as an executive at the former SeaMed, a contract engineering and manufacturing firm that operated in Redmond before its acquisition in 1999.
Aculight’s first commercial laser came out just two years ago. Now, product sales are a growing part of Aculight’s revenue, which previously relied almost solely on research contracts, including many from the government.
In addition to its custom-order laser systems, the company advertises five standard laser products. That includes the Renoir, a nerve stimulation laser introduced in September for researchers. It’s the company’s debut product for the medical research market, though the device isn’t approved for routine use on humans.
The Renoir laser emanates from a large box, but a nerve stimulation laser might one day be small enough to be implanted in the body, Bendett said.
While the company continues to develop uses for its technology such as three-dimension laser radar for the military, the potential medical uses are particularly exciting, Bendett said. They represent a new market for Aculight and a chance for the company’s lasers to directly affect people’s lives.
“Everyone clearly understands the benefits of this,” he said. “It may not be flashy, but it’s very important.”
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
Aculight Inc.
Headquarters: Bothell
Founded: 1993
Employees: About 75
Growth: Revenue grew 123 percent from 2001 to 2005. The company ranks as the states 34th largest high-tech company by Washington CEO magazine.
Web site: www.aculight.com
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