History of photomedicine.
From Niels Finsen's 1903 Nobel Prize through Endre Mester's accidental laser biostimulation discovery to NASA's plant-growth research to today's mature PBM science.
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1903
Niels Finsen wins the Nobel Prize for light therapy
Niels Finsen, a Danish-Faroese physician, was awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his treatment of lupus vulgaris (cutaneous tuberculosis) using concentrated light. He built specialised lamps that delivered visible and ultraviolet light to lesions; the resulting tissue effects (mostly antimicrobial UV mechanisms) cured a condition that had previously been considered untreatable.
Finsen's framework was largely empirical — he didn't know the molecular mechanism, only that specific wavelengths produced specific tissue responses. But he established the principle that light could be therapeutic in a clinically validated way, and opened the field of phototherapy.
His work also indirectly raised the question of what other wavelengths might do. The red and near-infrared parts of the spectrum wouldn't be properly investigated for another 60 years.
1960s
Endre Mester's accidental discovery
In 1967, Hungarian physician Endre Mester ran an experiment intended to test whether ruby laser light could induce tumours in shaved laboratory mice. The control mice got nothing; the experimental mice got laser exposure. The result was unexpected: the lasered mice didn't develop tumours, but they grew their hair back faster than controls.
Mester recognised something interesting and shifted his research programme to studying what he called “biostimulation” — the effects of low-level laser light on biological tissues. He showed accelerated wound healing in animal models, then in human patients with chronic ulcers. The mechanism wasn't understood but the empirical effect was clear and reproducible.
Mester's work founded what became low-level laser therapy (LLLT) and, decades later, photobiomodulation. He's widely regarded as the father of the field.
1990s
NASA, plant growth, and the medical application leap
In the late 1990s, NASA was investigating LED lighting for growing plants on space station experiments. Specific red wavelengths (around 670nm) drove photosynthesis efficiently and turned out to also accelerate plant healing from cuts and damage. NASA researchers noticed something more interesting: when astronauts handled the LED arrays, skin wounds on their own hands healed faster.
Harry Whelan at the Medical College of Wisconsin partnered with NASA to investigate medical applications. His team published a series of papers in the early 2000s on LED biomodulation of human cells — particularly mitochondrial function and wound healing. This was the first major mainstream-science investigation of red light's clinical potential.
The NASA / Whelan connection became one of the most-cited origin stories for modern red light therapy — partly because the “NASA developed this” framing was a great marketing hook. The science was real; the marketing simplification of it ran ahead of the evidence.
1980s–2000s
Tiina Karu and the cytochrome c oxidase mechanism
Russian biophysicist Tiina Karu (1939–2018) at the Institute of Laser and Information Technologies in Moscow did the foundational mechanistic work on photobiomodulation. From the late 1980s through the 2000s, she published the papers that identified cytochrome c oxidase as the primary photoacceptor in cells — the molecular target that absorbs red and near-infrared photons and drives downstream ATP production.
Karu's work elevated PBM from a clinical observation (“this seems to help”) to a mechanistic science (“here is exactly what happens at the molecular level”). Her absorption spectra, dose-response curves, and cellular response models still define how modern researchers think about red light therapy.
She's less famous than Mester or Whelan in popular telling, but her work is what makes modern PBM a credible scientific field rather than a wellness curiosity.
2000s–present
Michael Hamblin and the modern PBM consensus
Michael Hamblin at Harvard / Massachusetts General Hospital's Wellman Center built on Karu's mechanistic foundation and produced the comprehensive reviews that have defined modern photobiomodulation. His 2017 review in BBA Clinical is the most-cited PBM paper in current circulation, and his “biphasic dose response” framework (Hamblin et al. 2015) is the standard reference for dose-response in the field.
Hamblin's contribution was synthesising decades of disparate research into coherent mechanism + dose + clinical-application frameworks. He also normalised the terminology shift from “LLLT” (low-level laser therapy) to “PBM” (photobiomodulation) — LEDs and lasers both work, the mechanism is photobiomodulatory, the old name had become misleading.
Subsequent work by Joenisha Lanzafame (hair regrowth RCTs), Alexander Wunsch (skin RCTs), Cláudio Ferraresi (athletic recovery), and others has filled out the clinical evidence base in specific applications. The field today is genuinely mature relative to most wellness modalities.
2013–2014
The Wunsch and Lanzafame RCTs — mainstreaming the wellness applications
Two papers in 2013 and 2014 transformed red light therapy from clinical PBM into mainstream wellness.
Lanzafame et al. (2013, Lasers Surg Med 45(8): 487-495) ran the male androgenetic alopecia RCT — 44 men, 16 weeks, 655nm laser helmet device, 35% increase in hair count versus sham. The FDA had already cleared LLLT devices for hair regrowth in 2007 based on earlier evidence; Lanzafame consolidated the modern dose-response evidence and led to the wave of FDA-cleared home devices (HairMax, Capillus, Theradome) that followed.
Wunsch & Matuschka (2014, Photomed Laser Surg 32(2): 93-100) ran two split-face skin RCTs — 113 subjects, 30 sessions over 12 weeks, 45% increase in intradermal collagen density and 27% reduction in skin roughness. Sham-controlled, blinded, objective ultrasonographic measurement. The foundational evidence for the modern facial-skin red light therapy market.
These two papers, along with the Stausholm 2019 knee OA meta-analysis, anchor the current wellness applications. They also coincided with the broader Wim Hof / Huberman-era popularisation of evidence-led wellness practice. Red light moved from niche to mainstream over roughly 2014–2022.
Today
Mainstream wellness with continuing research
Red light therapy is now a mainstream wellness category. Dedicated facilities (R1SE among them) operate in major cities. Home device sales are substantial. Andrew Huberman and Rhonda Patrick discuss the protocols on the world's biggest podcasts. The clinical research base continues to expand — transcranial PBM for depression and Alzheimer's, retinal PBM for vision, oral PBM for dental healing.
The frontier of the next decade: more personalised dose-response (Apple Health / wearable integration for tracking session response), targeted clinical applications (depression, neurodegeneration), and continued tension between the genuine evidence and overstated marketing.
R1SE opened with red light + PEMF + binaural beats as a core offering precisely because the moment for the category is now. The science is mature enough to defend, the practice is accessible enough to scale, and the integration with our other modalities (HBOT, cold, sauna) creates stacks that no single-modality provider can match.
Common questions
A hundred years of evidence. One bed.
Finsen would have approved. Mester would have been impressed. R1SE's bed is what their science makes possible today.
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