President Obama Awards IBM Scientists with National Medal of Technology and Innovation for Inventing the Underlying Technology in LASIK Surgery

President Obama will honor a team of three IBM (NYSE: IBM) scientists James J. Wynne, Rangaswamy Srinivasan and Samuel Blum with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the country's most prestigious award given to leading innovators for technological achievement. They are receiving this award for their discovery of a new form of laser surgery, using an excimer laser that made modern LASIK and PRK refractive eye surgery possible.

President Obama will personally bestow the award to Drs. Wynne and Srinivasan at a special White House ceremony today. IBM has earned the National Medal of Technology and Innovation on nine other occasions.

"It is a huge honor to receive this award for our research more than thirty years after its initial discovery. This achievement is a reflection of IBM's culture of innovation, to think far into the future, and a result of enabling different disciplines to come together to tackle real-world challenges with a broad domain of expertise," said Dr. Wynne of IBM Research.

IBM's transformational work in laser technology, by this team of scientists has shaped the course of surgical care. Well suited for delicate surgeries, the excimer laser replaced mechanical instruments such as the "cold steel" scalpel, which was not very precise, could leave the cornea permanently weakened and required a long recovery time.

The team of researchers, who each had different backgrounds that included laser physics, polymer photochemistry and materials science, embarked on their breakthrough adventure the day after Thanksgiving in 1981. What began as an experiment involving an excimer laser and some turkey leftovers led to the idea that this laser could be used in health and medicine, after they successfully irradiated a piece of turkey cartilage without any collateral damage to the surrounding tissue.

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