How I Built on NASA's LIXI Technology to Invent the Mini C-arm
Larry Grossman explains the technical leap from military night-vision and black hole exploration to the revolutionary 99% radiation reduction of the Mini C-arm.
NASA Technology Transfer
Part 2 of 5
Table of Contents
By Larry Grossman, CEO, Trans Leasing International, Inc. Excerpted from Serial Entrepreneur, January 2010
As the CEO of Trans Leasing International, Inc., I read through many medical journals every month looking for medical equipment vendors that I could set up with a leasing program. In the spring of 1984 I ran across an article about a NASA invention named Low Intensity X-ray Imaging, referred to as LIXI technology.
The lead scientist was a gentleman named Lo I. Yin. He moved to the U.S. from China as a teenager. He was one of the inventors of the Gen II-night vision image intensifier that was being used by the military for night vision goggles, tank sights and sniper scopes on rifles. LIXI technology takes a very small amount of light, such as from a distant star, and amplifies it 50,000x through a specialized image intensifier. It produces a green image which effectively turns darkness into light.
During his work for NASA, Dr. Yin detected gamma rays coming from black holes in outer space. He came up with the theory that gamma rays could be converted to visible light using what is known as a scintillator screen. If that light was amplified with a Gen II-night vision image intensifier, Yin believed that he would be able to see ‘inside’ of black holes. This would have been a major scientific accomplishment.
Unfortunately, LIXI technology was not usable for that purpose. However, by using an Iodine 125 radioactive isotope source for X-rays, LIXI could be used to construct a small, portable fluoroscopic device that would run on batteries.
The LIXI scope would emit 99% percent less radiation than the existing large-sized fluoroscopic c-arm X-ray imaging devices now in use. That was revolutionary, and it proved to be a game-changer in the X-ray field.
Yin’s team included two astrophysicists and a senior electrical engineer that worked for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a physicist that worked for the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C. I encouraged them to start QTR Consulting Group to work with me to further develop their technology. The innovations that I added led to the invention of the Mini C-arm and the commercialization of ground-breaking technology that continues for many decades and through multiple companies that I founded and/or led.
