Say words like “quantum physics” or “alternative medicine” and some very visible things start to happen.
First, most people aren’t quite sure what either entails; second, they’re getting more interested these days as work expands by universities and others in both areas.
Chapman University has for at least a decade amped up its focus on quantum-level—think very, very small—research and related science work. Yakir Aharonov, a National Medal of Science winner and sometime shortlisted for the Nobel Prize, who has worked with the late Stephen Hawking, is on its faculty.
The history of quantum physics includes names like Schrödinger, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Feynman.
University of California-Irvine for its part has pursued work in alternative medicine for twice that long, since the 2000 founding of its Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine—funded from Corona del Mar-based Samueli Foundation, a giving arm of Susan Samueli and husband Henry, co-founder of Broadcom. The couple boosted its work there big time in 2017 by an additional $200 million from the foundation.
One-fourth of the recent gift was earmarked at the time for a college of health sciences, with the rest for technology, as well as an endowment for future faculty recruitment and fellowships—i.e., work to continue well into the future.
Quantum Entanglement
Put the two together—quantum physics, alternative medicine—and what emerges is efforts to press that miniscule activity level into service to, ideally, improve human health.
Place Irvine-based Luminas squarely in that group.
The company believes its product, presented as a pain-relief patch and applied to the body, can tap an electrons-and-adhesive approach to use energy for pain relief.
It touts this as “zero ingredients” in a recent conversation with the Business Journal and on its sales-focused website. The patch has no direct active elements, such as chemicals, herbs or oil. But it has interacted with healing herbs and other potent potion-type materials—at the quantum level—by being placed on top of them.
The aim is at an effect similar to something Albert Einstein is said to have noted, and referred to as “spooky”: that electrons continued their swapping long after the two items, here the patch and the herbal remedies, are no longer touching.
If all goes to plan, a patient applies the patch, and leaves the building—but electron-swapping continues and pain dissipates.
There, There
Chief Executive Matt Case described a “proprietary charging system [and] energy cycling process” to stabilize a soreness situation at the molecular level by relocating electrons “to a new host material”—namely the Mylar patch, also called Luminas.
The material component is crucial, he said, because of how much Mylar is said to be able to store.
The Luminas website said the patch “capture[s] the electric signature from hundreds of natural remedies to relieve pain.”
Company materials say its products’ “energy medicine technology” can access 100 to 200 of these components. The website of Irvine venture capitalist Bionatus LLC, an investor in Luminas, calls the product an “electroceutical.”
Case is also vice president of business development at Bionatus; the two companies are 3 miles from each other, on opposite sides of the San Diego (405) Freeway, south of the Irvine Spectrum. Luminas is one of six Bionatus portfolio firms.
Bionatus Chief Executive Peter Capuciati’s education was in plasma physics, including work on how energy transfers at the quantum level. He also worked for a decade in commercial real estate with Savills Studley.
The bio said a precursor investment group Capuciati founded, Novus Via, reformed as Bionatus after a 2016 deal with Newport Beach-based investment group Strathspey Crown Holdings LLC.
The Business Journal reported last month on the quantum computing efforts of Strathspey Chairman Robert Grant, under computer security firm Crown Sterling.
Copper Mining
Case elaborated on Luminas’ technology via an analogy of hearing live music on a recording. The orchestra at some level is still “there: you’ve got the musicians and different instruments [all] playing and”—on a quantum level, let’s say—still “physically present.”
He said the work started, as Hawking might affirm, with a question: Can information or energy be transferred while maintaining its characteristics?
As Einstein might answer: “Yeah … but it’s a little weird.”
If this brings to mind those copper bracelets everyone was wearing a few years back know this: some folks still do.
Company data used in marketing said, for instance, that using the patch cut skin surface temperature by 7 degrees and kept it down for 24 hours. Pain reduction correlated with the decline.
A reporter’s anecdotal test of the patch on herself and her horse seemed to show some promise as well (see story, page 24).
Case sells a month of patches for a buck or two a day, depending on patch size, and a bit less for the now-ubiquitous subscribe-and-save monthly approach.
Pro Tips
Luminas launched about five years ago but didn’t have a product to market until May of last year.
Users—as well as company investors and endorsers—include professional athletes: Denver Broncos tight end Jeff Heuerman, New York Jets wide receiver Demaryius Thomas—who previously played for the Broncos—and ex-NBA player Derek Anderson.
Testimonials from players say the product controls swelling before and after games.
Luminas sells “StaminaPro”—an upgraded and waterproof patch aimed at athletes, including weekend warriors.
It employs 15 in Irvine and plans to raise that to 25 workers over the next several months.
First Impressions
I tried Luminas on a new bruise.
It felt like the topical analgesic Icy Hot—an ointment made mainly of menthol and the drug in aspirin—but with a bit of a boost, in the best possible way.
With the placebo effect eminently possible, I needed another subject.
Danny, my 14-year-old Holsteiner gelding, who suffers from sore muscles, volunteered.
He sometimes “points” with his nose to places he’s sore to get some extra rubdown; this time, instead of a massage, we went with “the patch.”
Twenty minutes later he seemed noticeably calmer.
I ordered StaminaPro and tried those too—they stayed on overnight.
—A. Leigh Corbett
