Baltimore County, MD NextUp: Baltimore County, 15 Jun 2016

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From YouTube: Fighting Cancer with Tiny Holes

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Learn how tiny holes are helping in the fight against cancer. Mike Adelstein, founder of Potomac Photonics, takes NextUP through his studio at bwtech@UMBC to see cutting edge laser technology at work.

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From 42 companies in 2006 to 120 businesses, totaling 1,200 employees.

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And generating $170 million a year in revenue for the state,.

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Life science, technology,, clean energy,, cyber security,.

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Biotech, wet labs in over 500,000 square feet.

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Have you figured out where we are yet??

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Well, if you guessed the bw tech technology center.

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On the beautiful campus of umbc,, then you're absolutely correct.

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And we're here today to talk to mike adelstein of potomac photonics,.

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One of the thriving businesses at bw tech.

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Come on!: let's go find mike.

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So we're here at potomac, photonics with mike adelstein.

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Hi, mike! welcome!, welcome, julia.

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We appreciate you coming by to visit us.

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Thank you so much!, so now mike, I hear that small things can change the world.

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Can you tell us a little bit more about that? absolutely.

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We focused on advanced manufacturing.. We make really small things.. When I mean small,, we can use our tools to get down to one micron.

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And the diameter of each of your hairs is 75 microns.

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So you can imagine how small we're getting.

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and so, we have customers coming to us from around the world.

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That require really small features for biotech devices,.

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Medical device, cancer treatment.

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and what we do is we look at those applications and we use our tools to be able to fabricate that and help people.

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Let me give you an example about how small things change the world.

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What we have here, is, as you can see, those are loose sutures.

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Those are normally used to, if you need to get stitches--.

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Yeah., what we do is we take these sutures and the customer asked us to laser machine very small channels in these sutures.

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And what they do is they take radiation, embed it in these sutures,.

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And then they use it for very localized treatment of breast and prostate cancer.

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That way, limiting the amount of radiation that's used during the treatment of this. and take this device, for example.

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now,. I'm going to pull this down, and this looks like it's just a piece of plastic, right?.

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Yes. uh huh., but in this plastic there are 25,000 holes in this.

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25,000 holes., you can't see them. we'll have to go to a microscope., but I can show it to you in one of our labs. and those holes are 1.9, microns,, plus or minus .3 microns.

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And this is used for drug discovery application.

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the great thing about this application is, we use our competitive advantage.

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To come up with a technology to do it., and so what the company does is they send it here to us where we laser drill the holes., then we send it overseas where it gets built into a product., and then it comes back to the united states.

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and that's what we're trying to do here at potomac is we're trying to be competitive and bring manufacturing back here to the united states.

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love. It! talked about changing the world and amir truly is changing the world..

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Some of the applications that he's worked on are related to diagnosis of concussions..

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So if you get hit--, someone gets hit in the head,.

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One of his devices that the customer came to us that he successfully fabricated can be used to detect whether or not that person got a concussion.

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Other applications that he's worked on are related to cancer discovery,.

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Looking in separating cancer cells and treatment, regimens related to that.

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And so, we're very proud of the technology he's developed.

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And also proud of amir.

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Yes, amir. thank you.. Thank you for what you do., so mike,. We've seen some really cool things here at potomac, photonics.

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Tell me,, if someone's interested in working here,, what are the skill sets that you look for? mike:. The most important thing that we found so far is somebody that's passionate.

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If we get someone that comes in here, that's passionate, that wants to learn. we've taken people with high school degrees, all the way through to college and upper degrees and they've been successful. Working here.

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here is one of our proudest examples.. His name is john ford. hi, john!. How are you? pleasure to meet you!? He graduated from dematha high school. he's got a high school degree..

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He joined us after he graduated and he started as a technician.

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And became really passionate in terms of what we do.

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and now he's an engineer. and he's actually running all sorts of jobs..

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And it just shows that, really,, you know,.

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As long as the person has a desire and really wants to do. It,.

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That they can succeed. and he's one of our brightest examples.

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So, mike,, that was amazing. thanks for the tour. now,. I know that--. I've heard that you've taken advantage of our boost fund.

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And I believe it was for equipment, or...?

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A lot of the equipment that you saw on the floor, we used from the--, we were able to purchase with the boost fund.

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And the most important thing to know about that is: you saw that equipment is helping change the world., it's helping people hear,, it's curing cancer,.

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It's helping do drug discovery.

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It's doing a lot of great things and we are so appreciative to baltimore county for helping us with that.

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And we are-- and likewise, you know, appreciative of you being a recipient.

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so,. We are-- we're here. Today.

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we've learned a lot about potomac photonics.

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thank you, mike adelstein, for,, you know, hosting us.

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And this is julia lynton-brown for next up, baltimore county.

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