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Thomas M. Baer, CEO and chairman of Arcturus Bioscience Inc., a Mountain View, Calif., maker of laser microdissection instruments and reagents for the analysis of microscopic tissue samples, has been appointed a consulting professor in the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford University. Baer will work with graduate students and faculty of Bio-X, a new program promoting collaboration among engineering, computer science, physics, chemistry and other fields to facilitate biosciences research. Baer, who will retain his positions at Arcturus, was previously vice president of research at Biometric Imaging and vice president of research at Spectra-Physics Inc. He holds more than 50 patents involving biotechnology, laser development and laser applications, and is a fellow with The American Association for the Advancement of Science and The Optical Society of America.