If they tell you that without photonics you wouldn’t be reading this on the screen of your device, you might think it’s a joke. Nothing could be further from the truth. Photonics surrounds us. Lluis Torner, founder of the Institut de Ciències Fotòniques (ICFO), sums it up this way: “The Internet currently works because there are fiber optic cables that cover the entire planet and transmit data through photons, that is, light. It doesn’t matter to you as a user whether that’s photonics or not, but without photonics, the massive Internet, as we have it, wouldn’t exist,” he explains.
But this discipline not only makes it possible to connect to the Internet, read the newspaper, check social networks and spend some time listening to Spotify. The European Commission calculates that about 30% of the economy of the Old Continent depends in some way on photonics. Because this science in charge of putting photons at our service is something like a technological Swiss army knife with infinite applications.
To begin with, the natural photons of the sun generate photovoltaic energy, to understand us, electricity with solar panels, one of the sustainable energies of the future. There are also artificial photons, based on laser light, which are used for hundreds of industrial and medical applications. They are what make it possible for us to pay by passing the bar code through a laser reader, to manufacture ultra-precise cutting and surgery machines, or to support the work of doctors through image diagnosis.
These are some of its applications today, but the engineers and physicists who work hand in hand with photonics are clear that the future is written with F for photonics. And the search for energy sources to curb climate change, too. “Solar energy still has a long way to go in terms of achieving different and more efficient systems,” emphasizes Torner. And he points out some ideas that could come in the coming years: solar panels for electric cars, devices that can be placed on the windows…
The bad news is that in Spain we adopt the new developments in photonics as viewers, but we hardly manufacture them. This could change in the coming years, thanks to spin-off companies created in research centers to give photons a run for their money. “The challenge is to get these ‘deep tech’ companies to grow strongly in our country as well,” concludes Torner.
When photonics has begun to add muscle to bioengineering (the ability to build things from biological elements), medicine in all its aspects has made a quantum leap. Josep Samitier, director of the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and professor at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Barcelona, ??highlights that “being able to stimulate materials with light and having a better resolution to see things on a very small scale, such as nanomaterials, has opened up a range of options in medicine. Now we can manufacture new light-stimulated drugs or use new polymerized biomaterials.”
To put it in roman paladino, regenerate an organ, print human skin in 3D (let’s imagine its scope in a burn unit) or propose a personalized therapy are no longer things of science fiction. It’s happening in mainstream medicine. “We can go from working statistically, that is, this drug or this therapy works well for a certain percentage of the population, to combining diagnosis with therapy, specifying what is the most appropriate for a specific patient,” emphasizes Samitier.
If until now, to put it colloquially, it was only possible to kill flies with cannon fire, new technologies put tools in the hands of researchers and medical professionals to create therapies tailored to each patient. In this way, their specific symptoms are tackled and side effects are minimized as much as possible. We no longer only talk about health, but about the quality of life of the patient, usually forgotten for the sake of healing.
Having incredible resolution microscopes based on photonics has made it possible, among other things, to snoop inside cells, advance in the human genome, better understand the functioning of proteins at the DNA level, enter the brain with nuclear magnetic resonance… When scientists are able to understand how a pathogen manages within our body, or how an autoimmune disease is triggered and progresses, it is easier to create a drug or therapy.
“Light, nanoparticles and all the new technologies are going to allow us to make great progress in health. Not only human, but planetary health. We cannot lose sight of the interaction of the human species with other species, and, in general, with the entire environment”, concludes Samitier.
“Any innovation in health is beneficial”, highlights Manel Peiró, professor and director of the Institute for Healthcare Management at Esade. The new technologies are by no means cheap, but they translate into diagnostic improvements and a better prognosis for cure, less discomfort for the patient and much more efficient work for all health personnel. “They allow us to maintain a level of quality in the health offer, because in the end this is indeed a place that we all pass through,” he points out.
If we look into the bowels of a hospital, where cutting-edge treatments are cooked, we find scenarios worthy of a Star Trek ship. Photonics and diagnostic imaging intersect with other major technological currents applied to health therapies, such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchain, mobile health, Big Data… “Artificial intelligence, for example , is transforming certain specialties that have to do with images in pathological anatomy and oncology. All technologies serve to support others”, stresses Peiró.
On many occasions, new technological advances do not replace existing ones, but complement them. It will be the doctor who determines which diagnostic test is most appropriate for each case. “They work like the layers of an onion, building up one under the other. The most typical example is magnetic resonance imaging. It has not eliminated ultrasound scans, CT scans, or X-rays,” says Peiró.
Having such precise and new technologies implies an extra learning effort for all health professionals. It is no longer enough to know about health, they have to handle all these tools with ease and undergo constant updating to provide the best possible service to patients. These advances come just after a pandemic in which health professionals have worked 200% and which has exposed the seams of our public health system.
“Our health system is going to have to allocate more resources to incorporate new technological advances. Also to train qualified medical and nursing professionals, which will be the next bottleneck,” warns Peiró. “We are moving towards a scenario with an increasingly older population and more chronic diseases, which are the ones that consume the most resources. It’s the perfect storm.”
More than a century ago, the Spanish writer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno exclaimed his famous “Let them invent, then, they and we will take advantage of their inventions”. And that has been the tone that has commanded the investigation in Spain, scarce and with few resources. The pandemic has highlighted the need to have cutting-edge technologies made here and not depend on third countries. “The excellence of a health system is determined by its ability to incorporate innovations and research into its reality,” says Peiró.
But also to investigate. “In Spain there is a paradox that the private sector is the largest financier of all the research and all the innovations that are produced in Spain. I am not saying that the public health system should be privatized, far from it, but the collaboration between public and private investment would have to be much stronger”, adds Peiró.
Its application to the health sector allows fine-tuning diagnostic imaging, making it possible, among other things, to see inside cells and develop drugs treated with light, but photonics goes much further, and the sectors in which it can be applied are almost limitless.
