1 week Ago By Emily Pearce Moscow-Pullman Daily News
PULLMAN — Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories is developing a medical device that could lead to earlier detection of autism spectrum disorder in children. The local manufacturing firm announced in a news release Thursday that Georgina Lynch, principal scientist, was recently hired to lead a new medical devices team for establishing the technology. The former associate professor at Washington State University’s Elson S.
Floyd College of Medicine left the university for SEL in November following the invention of a hand-held pupillometry prototype for autism disorder screening. The college announced in its January newsletter Lynch began working on the medical tool in 2016 after completing her doctoral degree in neuroscience/psychology at WSU. She moved into a research faculty role within WSU’s Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, which launched the Integrative Brain Function and Neurodevelopment Lab to conduct research on pupillometry light reflex and early autism detection.
It was there she experimented in ways to measure eye reactions of children with autism spectrum disorder. She led the creation of a fully functional prototype that integrated hardware and software to read pupillometry biometrics that informs risk for autism. She and Lars Neuenschwander, WSU alumnus and medical doctor, patented the equipment they developed together in 2023.
SEL purchased the technology in 2024 for further development of the device. SEL founder Edmund Schweitzer said in the news release this tool could make screening for autism as simple as taking pictures. It works by detecting atypical pupil light reflexes, providing an indirect measurement of neural activity in the brain stem.
Kate Wilhite, SEL’s senior media manager, said in an interview that while the technology alone will not diagnose autism, it can provide an indicator of risk associating the reflex with an index related to the likelihood of autism. She added it supports behavioral screening in routine health care..
