An accidental injury of the Chinese doctoral student laboratory opened a great invention

Special author ｜ Sun Tao

One day in 1993, at the Laboratory Laboratory Laboratory of the University of Michigan University in the United States, a doctoral student from China was busy testing the damage to quartz glass. With his mentor Gérard Mourou, he invented the puppet pulse release technology (CPA) technology, he can arbitrarily adjust the pulse width to test. He was immersed in it until a beam of laser reflected into his right eye from a specific angle in a quartz glass. It happened that he just opened the goggles at the time.

This is laser, and injury is inevitable. The doctoral student never expected at the time that the low -energy mixed light eventually achieved the famous femtosecond latik surgery, which has benefited 24 million close -to -vision patients so far.

Although the doctoral student later became the second inventor of the core patent of Fewllo Lasik, his unique connection with the technology had not been disclosed before. Even if Professor Muru talked about the invention of this technology, based on the consideration of personal privacy, he only mentioned the unexpected operation of a graduate student.

After Mulu won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics with CPA technology, at the official Twitter of the Nobel Prize, some people introduced the posts in Mulu Lasik to discover the post: Who is this graduate student?

Du Detao is the graduate student. On September 14, 2022, Du Detao ranked third among the Golden Goose Awards, including the Golden Goose Awards issued by several organizations including the American Science Promotion Association (AAAS). The five are: Tibor Juhasz, Ron Kurtz, Du Detao, Mulu and Donna Strickland.

They all come from Muru Labs. Strickland is a graduate student of Mulu. Although she did not directly participate in the invention of Feioseki Lasik surgery, she and Mulu jointly invented the most critical CPA technology in the operation. Mulu won the Nobel Prize. Yhas and Kurz are the guidancers of Flying Lasik surgery and have achieved huge business success.

The Golden Goose Award was originally a basic study that brought unexpected surprises to the awards. Flying Lasik surgery won a prize.

It was only before, Du Detao's contribution on Femittian Lasik was not widely known.

Mulu in the laboratory source: Golden Goose Award official website

Unintentional "little white mouse"

Du Dutao graduated from the Department of Modern Physics at the Department of Modern Physics of the University of Science and Technology of China in the Department of Modern Physics of the University of Science and Technology of China. He joined the Mulu Laboratory in 1990 to study for a PhD. At that time, there were only a few laboratories in the world of femtosecond laser studies. Even the staff of Mulu laboratory had to make an appointment in advance to use femtosecond laser devices. As a result, it became the best choice for Du Detao.

Du Dutao Tu Source: Golden Goose Awards official website

At this time, 5 years after Muru and Strick invented CPA technology, Mulu had just left Rochester University to the University of Michigan for 2 years. At this time, Muru Lab is still busy expanding CPA technology. application. The so -called CPA technology is the clever design of the pulse exhibition width, energy amplification, and then compressing the pulse width at the time scale, and opened a new way to achieve ultra -high power laser.

The Mulu Lab found that the femtosecond pulse obtained by CPA technology can not only concentrate energy in the time of femtosecondweight, but also in the three -dimensional space of the micron range, then this can accurately make almost all materials " Cold processing.

At this time, Du Detao was in the transformation from theoretical physics to experimental optical. He was engaged in the development of new CPA technology in Mulu Lab to study how to make laser power higher.

Although the transformation is large, Du Detao found that he "has good hands -on ability and can adjust the laser and work stable." He was fascinated by the tests of various material materials and found that the damage caused by femtosecond laser has its unique excellent performance, but he did not expect to use biomass to test until accidents occurred.

Du Dutao, who is not myopia, has become the first "Little White Mouse" tested by Ferthlose laser in the biological tissue. Whether it was too tired that day or not to sleep well, he couldn't remember it today. "It is not a bad mood anyway," because when doing research, he never had a bad mood.

He only realized that a light flashed, and immediately realized that his eyes were injured. Fortunately, the laser energy was very low and did not immediately cause discomfort, but Mulu still asked Dudao to go to the University of Michigan's ophthalmology center for inspection.

The next detail has been pursued by Mulu many times:

We attached great importance to sending this graduate student to the hospital. Ophthalmologists found that the injury of his eyes was "particularly round and particularly small", and asked in surprise: What kind of laser do you use? Students are puzzled: Why do you ask so? The doctor's explanation is, "Because your damage is perfect."

This ophthalmologist was a Kurz who won the Golden Goose Award. He was still a resident with only 2 years of experience, but he was keenly aware that Du Detao's perfect circular injury and other laser used at the time were used. Different damage. Just a few days later, the ophthalmologist called Mulu, saying that he wanted to work in the Flying Laser Laboratory to conduct the exploration of feet laser in the ophthalmology.

Since then, Du Detao has "fighting" with Kurz. They want to confirm that this kind of femtosecond laser that can accurately "process" in quartz glass materials will perform in biomaterials. By conducting various verifications from femtosecond to nanoseconds in animal cornea, they found that their accuracy was quite high. It can focus on a very small space in the corneal tissue in a very short time. The huge energy generated by it allows biological tissue to ionize, and it will eventually produce countless tiny bubbles to achieve extremely precise tissue cutting. In 1994, the study ushered in a qualitative leap. At that time, Du Detao and Kurz told the study at a medical -related optical conference in Canada, which attracted the attention of research scientists in the University of California, E Irving. He is the first person in the list of five people's Golden Goose Awards. According to Du Detao, at that time, Youhas was also doing laser surgery research, but he did not use femtosecond laser, so the effect was not good. Coincidentally, Yhas was also under the door of Mulu and served as a postdoctoral laboratory at the University of Rochester. Soon, Youhas received a call from Mulu and invited him to the University of Michigan to develop a femlose LASIK surgery.

At this point, the five members of the Golden Goose Award all appeared. At this time, as the school, the University of Michigan also provided university research funds to promote the work. In addition, this research has also been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Health Research Institute (NIH).

It's accidental, it's inevitable

The story after the Filtlo Lasik surgery gradually drifted away from Du Detao. In 1997, Kurz and Youhas founded Intralase to focus on the commercialization of Flying Lasik surgery. By 2001, the technology was approved by the US FDA. After that, Intralase was listed and acquired, and eventually returned to Qiangsheng vision. According to business media Crain ’s Detroit Business, Intralase is one of the most successful startups incubated by the University of Michigan.

Compared with the previous traditional LASIK surgery, Flying LASIK surgery does not require traditional blade to make corneal petals. Instead, it depends on the thickness, diameter, shape, and position and width of the corneal petals in the computer. The accurate and smooth corneal petals also reduce the occurrence of postoperative dry eye.

In 2008, Kurz and Youhaas joined forces to develop femtosecond laser cataract surgery again, and 15%of cataract patients benefited from the operation. Today, Juhaas set off again in California, leading a new start -up company aiming at glaucoma treatment.

The laser accident did not leave a scar on Du Detao, there was no inflammation, the doctor did not deal with any treatment, and his vision was not affected, but the injury was still there. Until a few months, he felt healed and did not go to check again. His guess was that the nerve damage of the retina did not recover, but the brain made some adjustments to fill the retina's lack of neural information.

For Du Detao, he is still the second inventor of the patent of femtosecond processing invention. The patent was called "the method of controlling laser breakdown and ablation structure". They initiated a priority application in 1994 and released in October 1995. This invention is the core patent of the Femiando Lasik surgery.

Du Detao did not go along the road of medical laser, although he and Kurz had completed the basic research of femtosecond LASIK surgery. In 1995, he completed his doctoral dissertation and obtained a company's hire notification before graduation to engage in the application development of femlose laser.

After that, Du Detao changed several career directions, from ultra -fast industrial laser to laser micro -processing pharmaceuticals, to optical fiber communication, to laser radar, laser plasma diagnosis, and so on. Until in recent years, he returned to Beijing with Dr. Chen Ruxin, a college classmate, and Dr. Zhang Zili, a classmate of the same class, embraced the road to entrepreneurship and set up Ruizhen Technology, focusing on autonomous driving laser radar. Mulu also gladly accepted Du Detao's invitation and became the chairman of the company's scientific committee.

As the classics in many scientific history, Flying Lasik surgery began by accident and finally inevitably.

In Du Detao's eyes, there was a series of accidents in the invention of Flying Lasik surgery. Mulu thought of the concept of CPA technology was that the light on the ski cable car appeared, plus Du Detao's accident, Kurtz's keen consciousness, and Canada's encounters. , Gegetance, Human and Harmony. "

As for "inevitable", first of all, Mulu has always focused on pursuing ultra -fast and super laser, and has created many cutting -edge work, which has laid "inevitable seeds" for them to achieve femtlose Lasik surgery.

Followed by the leaders of the University of Michigan. They did not take Du Detao's laboratory accident just as negative events, but saw the potential of its social value and economic value, and gave Mulu more funding support to develop medical applications. Another premise, Mulu Labs found that the unique excellent performance of femtosecond laser can cause damage earlier.

However, in Du Detao's view, this kind of laboratory accident is not a good research model. "If I have a choice, I must not be a little white mouse because the risks are uncertain." When asked about whether there was no regret for walking along the road of ophthalmology, Du Detao seemed quite calm. His view is that he can't say it, because he still likes to do the original application research, and "it feels good."

In fact, the accident of the laboratory did not bring him a substantial pain and inconvenience. In addition, he planned to go to the industry very early, and the research and development of Flying LASIK surgery was still a start -up project led by the University of Michigan at that time. If you want to continue To do it, he may need to stay in Mulu Lab as a postdoctoral.

For decades, Du Detao has rarely talked about his role in the development of Flying LASIK surgery. Because Du Detao is a laser expert, people around us often accidentally ask him if he understands the femlose lasik surgery. Only at this time will they suddenly realize that the person in front of them is one of the core characters of the great invention, and the character who should be written into the ophthalmology textbook.

Reference materials:

https://www.goldngooseaward.org/01awardees/lasik

https://patents.google.com/patent/wo1995027587a1

/>

Edit | Fangyuan

Capture | Guo Gang

= PNG "Data-NickName =" Science Network "Data-Alias =" ScienceNet-Cas "Data-Signature =" In-circle major events, industry insights, occasionally gossip ... produced by the world's largest Chinese science community, Chinese Science News Agency.We: [email protected]; submitting [email protected]. "Data-from =" 0 "data-is_biz_ban =" 0 " /> Cooperation matters: [email protected]

Submission: [email protected]

Like this article?Praise + watch support!

- END -