Laser Vision: How GE Engineer Helped Boston Brain Surgeon Zap Cancer With A Laser Beam
Tomas Kellner
April 11, 2016
The late Harvard radiologist Ferenc Jolesz spent much of his career looking for creative ways to kill brain cancer at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In the early 1990s, he found a promising new weapon. He decided to send a laser beam along an optical fiber threaded in the patient’s brain through a small hole in the skull. The fiber would carry the laser’s powerful light, terminate precisely at the tumor and destroy it with its intense heat.
GE said in January that it will relocate its headquarters from Connecticut to Boston. The company had a significant presence in the city even before the move — GE businesses ranging from Aviation and Current to Digital and Healthcare employ almost 5,000 people in the city and surrounding area. But GE’s Boston roots go to the very beginning of the company. Our video and also our photo essay tell that story.