Daily News Briefs

Igor Gradov has joined Lumenis Ltd. as global vice president of research and development. Gradov has spent his career developing light-based medical products and technologies in dermatology, ophthalmology, dentistry and general surgery. He has held executive positions at Coherent Optical Division, VISX Inc., Palomar Medical Technologies and Emory Vision Correction Group and most recently was COO of Luxano AB in Sweden. Lumenis makes laser and intense pulsed light devices for medical and cosmetic applications. . . . Spectranetics Corp. has appointed health care industry executive David G. Blackburn to its board of directors. His term will expire at the company's 2006 annual meeting, when he will be eligible for re-election. Spectranetics, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., makes medical devices used with its excimer laser system for cardiovascular surgery. . . . Metrologic Instruments Inc., a maker of bar code scanning and data capture systems using laser holographic and vision-based technologies, announced that the Advanced Optical Systems Division of its Adaptive Optics Associates subsidiary has been awarded a four-year contract with a potential value of $1 million from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. to provide an electro-optic alignment subsystem for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST program is led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and involves an international team involving the European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, industry and academia. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for its design and development.