Daily News Briefs

Laserscope, a developer of medical lasers and advanced fiber optic devices, announced it has received a patent for the technology and applications for its GreenLight PV (formerly the Niagara PV) laser. US Patent 6,554,824, "Methods for Laser Treatment of Soft Tissue," covers the use of visible laser light for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia.. . . Applied Imaging Corp. announced it has entered into an agreement with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute to be its sole imaging development partner in the Atlas of Gene Expression project. The Sanger Institute is a genomics research center in Cambridge, England. The project will systematically map and compare protein expression in both normal and disease states, using recombinant antibodies to image and analyze tissue samples, and will be used to establish targets for diagnostic tests and therapies for various diseases. . . . Joan Varrone has been appointed vice president of finance and CFO at San Francisco-based Optiva Inc., which makes self-assembling nanomaterials for use in a variety of optical applications, such as flat panel displays.