Daily News Briefs

Laserscope, a San Jose, Calif., developer of medical lasers and advanced fiber optic devices, has received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration to market Aura, its 532-nanometer, potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) laser for the treatment of acne. Clinical data was obtained from research conducted at the Wellman Laboratories of Photomedicine at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital. . . . GE Medical Systems, a unit of General Electric Co., has signed an agreement with the cancer imaging program of the National Cancer Institute for clinical trials of 18F-fluorothymidine (FLT) as an agent for positron emission tomography in the imaging of tumors. GE Medical will provide TRACERlab FX synthesis systems to produce FLT for clinical trials. . . . Lockheed Martin has awarded a $1.6 million contract to Silicon Graphics (SGI) to develop and build a prototype night-vision goggles (NVG) simulation system for F-16 pilot training systems that Lockheed Martin makes for the US Air Force F-16 Mission Training Center. Lockheed Martin also awarded SGI a $3.6 million contract to install the NVG simulation on 14 pilot training systems used in the Air Force F-16 program. The NVG system produces imagery on a helmet-mounted display that replicates what a pilot would see through actual night-vision goggles.