The Accident 意外發現： By Roshni Printer It is fascinating to note that some of the most groundbreaking scientific discoveries happened by chance. Awarded a Golden Goose Award in 2022, one such “accident” in the medical field led to the invention of “bladeless laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis,” a laser corrective eye surgery commonly known as bladeless LASIK. What is LASIK? LASIK is a procedure in which a laser is used to reshape the cornea to treat a range of vision problems, such as myopia (near-sightedness), hyperopia (far-sightedness) and astigmatism [1]. Myopia is a condition where individuals struggle to see distant objects, due to an excessive length of the eyeball or excessive curvature of the lens, leading to the formation of image in front of the retina. In contrast, hyperopia allows individuals to see distant objects but not close objects, due to the short length of the eyeball or insufficient curvature of the lens, so the image forms behind the retina. Another common type of refractive error, astigmatism, is caused by the irregular shape of the cornea or lens. In these conditions, images cannot be sharply focused on the retina, leading to blurry vision. Through a corrective eye surgery, the shape of the cornea can be altered by precisely cutting off some part of the deeper cornea (corneal stroma), so that light can be correctly refracted onto the retina. From a technical point of view, the upper layers of cornea have to be removed before reshaping the stroma. This required a mechanical blade – until a seemingly unrelated lab accident happened [2, 3]. From a Lab Accident to a Successful Startup Back in 1985, physicists Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland invented a groundbreaking optical technique called “chirped pulse amplification,” which can produce ultrashort laser pulses as short as a femtosecond (10-15 second) with an intensity higher than ever [4]. Mourou later founded the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science at the University of Michigan, and took advantage of this technique to understand chemical reactions [3]. In 1993, one of Mourou’s graduate students working in the center sustained an accidental laser injury to his eye during an experiment [3]. Recalled that he “must have been tired” that evening, Detao Du accidentally lifted his safety goggles, and a stray beam (fortunately not the main beam) of the femtosecond laser produced circular burns to the his retina. Upon examination by Ron Kurtz, a doctor on duty at the University’s eye center, the burns were found to be perfectly circular and precise without damaging any surrounding tissue. Du and Kurtz were both fascinated by the perfect nature of the laser cut, so they decided to collaborate and investigate further. In an optics conference where Du and Kurtz presented their findings, the duo met Tibor Juhasz, a previous member of Mourou’s lab, who was seeking
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