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Silicon Valley researchers and companies showcased during OSA 'Frontiers in Optics' Annual Meeting

Local researchers take center stage to showcase innovation in optics

Innovations from more than 750 scientific, technical and educational presentations will be highlighted during The Optical Society's (OSA) Annual Meeting, Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2009, scheduled for October 11 - 15 at the Fairmont San Jose Hotel and the Sainte Claire Hotel in San Jose, Calif. Held in conjunction with Laser Science XXV, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Laser Science (DLS), the meeting will cover the breadth of optical science and engineering in five days of cutting-edge content, powerful networking and opportunities for scientific exchange. Exhibits featuring 40+ leading optics companies, including local companies Coherent and PolarOnyx, Inc., as well as Stanford Photonics Research Center (SPRC), will complement the in-depth educational programming and offer attendees a glimpse of the latest optical technologies and products.

More than 140 research papers from California including nearly 100 from local Silicon Valley researchers will be presented during FiO, covering a wide range of topics across the entire spectrum of optics and photonics. Highlights include:

• New Scope to Help Premature Babies Breathe - A new piece of equipment suitable for infants, a customized laryngoscope, has been developed to help premature babies breathe. Its centimeter-wide acrylic tip is tilted to better guide the breathing tube, a light-emitting diode (LED) illuminates the baby's airway and a camera at the end helps medical professionals to maneuver the tube and to teach others how to do the procedure. Researchers have successfully tested a prototype on a mannequin and are working to create a second version suitable for testing in clinical trials. (Paper FthP3, "Design and Prototype Fabrication of a Neonatal Video Laryngoscope" is at 2:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15).

• Following Single Molecules in Live Neurons - Peripheral nerves are the organic wires that connect the command centers in the brain to the muscles and other tissues they control. Understanding how these nerves function is of critical importance because of their central role in many human diseases. Now a group of researchers at Stanford University has designed a way to observe one critical aspect of peripheral nerve function -- the transport of essential proteins and other materials from one end of a nerve fiber to another. (Paper LSThB3, "Single Molecule Imaging of Axonal Transport in Live Neurons" is at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 15).

• Prehistoric Bear Diet Revealed by Laser Archaeology - Twenty-six thousand years ago, a brown bear living in what is now the Czech Republic died, leaving behind a tooth that has since become a fossil. Now a team of engineers has developed a way to figure out not only what it ate but its migration patterns using a laser instrument that could be modified to take out into the field. The team next hopes to use the technique to solve the mystery of a cave full of dead snakes that died more than 1 million years ago -- possibly from a disease -- by analyzing the vertebrae left behind. (Paper JWC18, "Multielemental Mapping of Archaeological Samples by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS)" is at 12 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12).

California researchers to deliver plenary address, Monday, October 12

• Andrea M. Ghez, Univ. of California at Los Angeles, USA - Unveiling a Supermassive Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy
• Janos Kirz, Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley Natl. Lab, USA - X-Ray Microscopy

Additional programming of note: Special Symposium: The Future of 3-D Television With 3-D movies helping to drive record box office revenues and companies like Sony and Panasonic rolling out the first 3-D-enabled televisions, a timely special symposium titled "The Future of 3-D Display: The Marketplace and the Technology" will feature several presentations on current and future technologies driving the 3-D revolution. (Tuesday, Oct. 13, 8 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.)

Known as the "Capital of Silicon Valley," San Jose leads the nation with the number of high tech companies and the largest concentration of technology expertise in the world—more than 4505 technology companies employing more than 180,000 people—San Jose is an ideal city to host OSA's Annual Meeting, which celebrates 90+ years of optical innovation. Additionally, it is home to approximately 1,000 optics professionals with significant university photonics centers located at Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley.

WHAT: The Optical Society of America's Annual Meeting – Frontiers in Optics 2009

WHERE: Fairmont Hotel and the Sainte Claire Hotel, San Jose, CA

WHEN: Sunday, October 11 – Thursday, October 15

For additional information or to register, contact Keira Shein at 410.363.9494 or keira@wilkinsonshein.com.

FiO 2009 is OSA's 93rd Annual Meeting and is being held together with Laser Science XXV, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Laser Science (DLS). The two meetings unite the OSA and APS communities for five days of quality, cutting-edge presentations, fascinating invited speakers and a variety of special events spanning a broad range of topics in physics, biology and chemistry. The FiO 2009 conference will also offer a number of Short Courses designed to increase participants' knowledge of a specific subject while offering the experience of insightful teachers. An exhibit floor featuring leading optics companies will further enhance the meeting.

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