Rangaswamy Srinivasan

Rangaswamy Srinivasan (born February 28, 1929, in Madras, India ) is a physical chemist and inventor with a 30-year career at IBM Research. He has developed techniques for ablative photodecomposition and used them to contribute to the development of LASIK eye surgery.

He received the National Medal of Technology from President Obama on February 2, 2013, for his contributions to laser eye surgery.

Education Srinivasan was born in present-day Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India on 28 February 1929. He held postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology in 1956, and at the University of Rochester from 1957 to 1961.

Srinivasan, physicist James J. Wynne and materials scientist Samuel Blum speculated that it might also be possible to use excimer lasers on living tissue. On November 27, 1981, Srinivasan experimented with the remains of his family's Thanksgiving turkey, and proved that it was possible to create precisely-etched patterns. An ultraviolet excimer laser pulsed at 193 nm was able to etch living tissue precisely without causing any thermal damage to surrounding area. Srinivasan named the technique Ablative Photodecomposition (APD),

In 1983, ophthalmic surgeon Stephen Trokel approached Srinivasan about the possibility of using APD for surgery of the cornea. The collaboration of Srinivasan, Trokel, and Bodil Braren led to development of LASIK eye surgery, a technique for reshaping the cornea to correct visual issues such as myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. In 1995, a commercial system for laser refractive surgery was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Srinivasan has published over 130 scientific papers and holds at least 22 US patents.

In 1990, Srinivasan formed a consulting company, UVTech Associates. and the ACS North East Section's Esselen Medal.

In 1998, Srinivasan was awarded the Max Delbruck Prize in Biological Physics by the American Physical Society.

In 1999, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

In 2002, he was inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame.

In 2004, he received the Prize for Industrial Applications of Physics from the American Institute of Physics. The same year, he, with Wynne and Blum, received the Optical Society's R. W. Wood Prize, "for their discovery of pulsed ultraviolet laser surgery, wherein laser light cuts and etches biological tissue by photoablation with minimal collateral damage, leading to healing without significant scarring."

In 2011, Srinivasan, Wynne, and Blum received the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize from Ohio University and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for their work, "a bioengineering achievement that significantly improves the human condition."

In 2012, Srinivasan, Wynne, and Blum were named as recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The award was presented on February 1, 2013, by President Barack Obama, to acknowledge their work with the Excimer laser, leading to the development of LASIK Surgery.