For close to a decade, R. Rox Anderson, MD, PhD, and Fernanda Sakamoto, MD, of the Wellman Center for Photomedicine in Boston have been working to develop a laser that can permanently destroy sebaceous glands, offering a potential cure for acne. “If you look at the sebaceous glands, you don't see any pigment in them, yet there are wavelengths in the infrared range where the lipids—the wax esters that are in the gland, in particular—have stronger absorption than the surrounding tissue,” Dr. Anderson explained to MedEsthetics back in 2010. “We don’t see the sebum as having pigment, but if we could see in infrared, we would see pigment there.”

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