Our nitrogen and nitrogen pumped dye lasers make ideal microscalpels. The scientist views the sample through a microscope or on a computer display, lines up the incision point, and pulses the laser to make a cut. The laser delivers a powerful burst for cutting and turns off before the surrounding material sustains damage. Samples cannot be contaminated when a laser scalpel is used.

Researchers use microablation to study important model specimens including C. elegans and Drosophila. Caenorhabditis elegans is a millimeter long soil nematode consisting of about 1000 cells. In the 1960’s it became a favorite lab animal for neurobiological studies. By late 1998 scientists completed the first genome sequence, that of C. elegans. For nearly a century biologists have experimented with Drosophila melanogaster or the common fruit fly. Ed Lewis, Christiane Nusselein-Volhard, and Eric Wiechaus won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for their discoveries concerning "the genetic control of early embryonic development" using the fruit fly as their experimental system. The Drosophila genome sequence was reported in March 2000. The chromosome maps and mutation information gleaned by fly pushers over the last century will now begin to be interpreted at the molecular level!

Researchers separate abnormal or diseased cells from areas of healthy tissue by laser microdissection. Molecular analysis by capillary electrophoresis or MALDI-TOF mass spectroscopy can be applied to the excised cells. In this fashion, scientists analyze physiological changes during the development and progression of cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other cellular diseases. This will permit the development of new therapeutics designed to target specific subpopulations of diseased cells.

Laser Science, Inc. provides individual researchers with lasers and adapters for commercial microscopes as described on our Microbeam System Web page. We do a large OEM business selling lasers to microscope manufacturers and systems integrators whose products combine lasers, microscopes, computers, and applications software for microdissection.

Laser Science, Inc.
8E Forge Parkway
Franklin, MA 02038

Phone: 999-999-9999
Fax: 999-999-9999