The Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics is one of 16 NASA Commercial Space Centers that help industry fly experiments in space. From space flight to hospitals on Earth. Numerous surgeries to remove brain tumors have been completed over the past year using a light-emitting diode surgical probe. Quantum Devices Inc. in Barneveld, Wis., has designed a new gold-plated probe for use in brain surgeries conducted as part of the research of Dr. Harry Whelan at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Clinical trials approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are continuing.
Wound healing studies with a different kind of light-emitting diode device are also under way.
The wound-healing device and the brain surgery probe produce long wavelengths of infrared light that penetrate deeply but are cool to the touch. Whelan uses the long wavelength light from the LED probe to activate special drugs that kill brain tumors. The high-powered LEDs are used to grow plants on NASA's Space Shuttle.