INTRODUCTION TO FLEXBEAM WITH SARAH TURNER
Originally from the U.K, Sarah has studied Psychology with Biology, Nutritional Medicine and Clinical Neuroscience. Sarah has a scientific research background starting in the pharmaceutical industry and more recently in the field of novel therapeutic devices and photobiomodulation.
She has an interest in all aspects of the application of light in biology including photobiomodulation, circadian biology, chronobiology, lifestyle modification and biohacking.
Although her main interest is scientific research, as part of her journey she has interviewed some of the most prolific thought-leaders, visionaries, experts in health and performance. She has been involved in the making of movies and media that explore many of the topics of biohacking.
She is currently working with Recharge Co Ltd on the FlexBeam – a targeted red light device, and is involved with the research and development of a transcranial red light device for brain health.
Sarah Turner presents FlexBeam, a portable red light therapy device designed to
Every person has the capacity to heal themselves. That is what we are doing twenty-four hours a day: creating new cells, removing cells that are no longer needed, recycling, and repairing all the time.
Summary
- Flexbeam is a portable, ergonomic red light therapy device designed to contour to the body, ensuring light penetrates deeply and hits targeted areas like joints effectively. - The device offers three settings to adjust the ratio of red light for skin health and near-infrared light for deeper penetration into mitochondria and tissues. - A unique feature is the scanning of wavelengths between 810 and 850 nm, allowing the device to interact with a wide range of therapeutic biomolecules. - Targeted application of red light close to the skin improves blood flow, reduces stiffness, and supports recovery from physical strain and sleep deprivation. - This technology enhances the body's natural healing capacity by improving circulation, regenerating the nervous system, and supporting the immune system.
Article
Introduction To Flexbeam And Red Light Therapy With Sarah Turner
A Portable Promise Of Recovery Took The Stage In Helsinki
At Biohacker Summit 2020 Helsinki, held in Helsinki, Finland, on 16 and 17 October 2020, Sarah Turner stepped onto the stage with a compact device and a sweeping claim. Red light therapy, she suggested, was no longer the preserve of elite clinics, astronauts or Olympic athletes. It had been folded, quite literally, into something portable, body-hugging and consumer-ready.
Turner, speaking during her presentation, *Introduction To Flexbeam With Sarah Turner*, introduced FlexBeam as a targeted red light therapy device designed to contour to the body and deliver red and near-infrared light where recovery was needed most. In a summit shaped by performance, sleep, resilience and self-optimization, the device fit the mood of the room almost perfectly.
The host, visibly running on little sleep after preparing a morning presentation until 7am, framed the appeal in practical terms. He had used the device before bed and again that morning, he said, in search of recovery. It was an unvarnished introduction to a technology that promised relief not in abstraction, but in the lived language of exhaustion, stiffness and strain.
Sarah Turner Brought A Research Lens To A Wellness Stage
Turner’s presence at the event reflected more than salesmanship. Originally from the UK, she came with a background spanning psychology with biology, nutritional medicine and clinical neuroscience, along with experience in pharmaceutical research and therapeutic devices. Her work had increasingly focused on photobiomodulation, circadian biology and the biological effects of light.
That mattered because red light therapy has long existed in a peculiar borderland: embraced enthusiastically by wellness communities, studied seriously in scientific settings, and often marketed with a confidence that outruns the evidence. Turner’s approach sought to anchor the conversation in mechanism.
“Red light therapy is one of the most exciting developments I have seen because light at certain wavelengths is proven to interact with the body in beneficial ways,” she said.
Her broader thesis was simple and memorable. “Your body functions in a similar way to a battery, and your health is determined by your ability to receive and maintain a charge.”
It was a metaphor tailored for a biohacking audience, but it also captured the philosophical undercurrent of the session: health as energy management, recovery as recharge, and light as a tool to restore biological capacity.
How FlexBeam Was Designed To Work With The Body
The central argument for FlexBeam was not merely that it emitted therapeutic light, but that it solved a practical problem found in many existing systems. Large light panels are often static. Clinical lasers can be expensive and less accessible. FlexBeam, Turner explained, was designed to be portable, rechargeable and ergonomic, with flexible panels that contour close to the body.
That closeness was presented as essential rather than incidental.
“The benefit is you get the full dose into the body,” Turner explained. Because light travels in a straight line, she said, the device had been designed to bend around the user rather than ask the user to adapt to a rigid machine. When wrapped around an elbow, knee or wrist, the panels could direct multiple beams toward a central point, concentrating the effect around joints and hard-to-reach problem areas.
For office workers with wrist pain, people with neck stiffness, or anyone trying to recover from physical strain, the sales pitch was obvious: this was photobiomodulation made wearable.
Red Light For The Surface, Near-Infrared For The Depths
One of the more compelling parts of the session came in Turner’s explanation of wavelength differences. FlexBeam offered three settings, allowing users to alter the ratio of visible red light and near-infrared light depending on the intended therapeutic target.
Setting one emphasized red light, associated more with effects near the skin, including circulation and tissue support. Setting two offered a blend. Setting three leaned heavily into near-infrared, with only a trace of visible red included so the user could see the device was on.
From a therapeutic point of view, Turner said, the distinction mattered. Red light has more of a surface effect, interacting with blood near the skin, collagen and elastin. Near-infrared, by contrast, penetrates more deeply.
“By using near-infrared light to penetrate the body deeply, we can affect the mitochondria and hit a wide range of therapeutic targets,” she said.
She referred specifically to mitochondria and cytochrome c oxidase, both common reference points in discussions of photobiomodulation. The implication was that recovery might be influenced at a cellular level, not simply through warmth or placebo, but through biological signaling and energy production.
The Significance Of Scanning Wavelengths
Another point singled out during the presentation was FlexBeam’s scanning technology. Rather than emitting a single static wavelength, the device was described as scanning between 810 and 850 nanometres.
The host highlighted this as one of the product’s distinguishing features. Turner’s explanation was that scanning across this near-infrared range could allow interaction with a broader set of biomolecules and therapeutic targets.
In a field where minute differences in wavelength are often treated as meaningful, this feature was presented as both technical sophistication and competitive advantage. The broader promise was precision without complexity: a device simple enough to wear, but engineered to do more than flood the body with generic light.
Recovery, Pain And The Expanding Language Of Therapy
As the session unfolded, the claims broadened. What began as a demonstration for stiffness and recovery opened into a wider therapeutic vision.
“This technology enhances your immune system, works on the gut-brain axis and connective tissue, improves circulation, and regenerates your nervous system,” Turner said.
That was a striking list, and one that reflected the expansive vocabulary often attached to red light therapy. In the summary of the presentation, FlexBeam was framed as a tool for improving circulation, reducing stiffness, supporting recovery from sleep deprivation, and helping the body’s natural healing processes. It was also described as potentially useful for chronic pain and joint discomfort, particularly because it could be applied directly and closely to problem areas.
The host offered his own anecdotal endorsement, describing regular use on the shoulders and neck, especially after computer work or poor sleep. In the theatre of live events, such testimony can do what charts and white papers cannot: it collapses distance between technology and experience.
From Elite Technology To Consumer Device
Turner positioned FlexBeam as the result of a wider shift in LED technology. More powerful and efficient LEDs, she said, had made it possible to shrink a once expensive category into a rechargeable product that could be assembled in-house and shipped globally.
“We have taken a powerful technology used by astronauts and Olympic athletes and made it a portable reality that can have a dramatic effect on everyone’s health,” she said.
That line captured the democratic ambition behind the product. FlexBeam was not presented as a niche gadget for laboratories or professional sports teams. It was framed as a consumer health device, one that sought to bring advanced photobiomodulation into daily routines, from bedtime recovery to workplace pain management.
The product launched through Indiegogo, with Turner noting that early buyers could sign up through the FlexBeam website and receive a launch discount. The commercial aspect was never hidden. But neither was it the whole story. At Biohacker Summit, commerce and futurism often moved in tandem.
A Biohacking Audience Heard What It Wanted To Hear
The appeal of the session rested partly in its timing. By 2020, conversations around health technology had shifted decisively toward tools that promised autonomy. Portable diagnostics, wearable trackers, sleep devices, cold exposure tools and light-based interventions all fed the same impulse: to measure, modulate and improve the self.
FlexBeam entered that ecosystem as both symbol and instrument. It was small, rechargeable and tactile. It suggested that recovery could be targeted, personalized and immediate. It turned a therapeutic concept into an object you could strap to your body.
At a gathering like Biohacker Summit 2020 Helsinki, that mattered. The event was never only about evidence. It was also about possibility, about the seduction of technologies that claim to make the invisible systems of the body more responsive to intention.
The Deeper Question Beneath The Light
What lingered after Turner’s presentation was not just the device, but the worldview behind it. The body, in this telling, was not a fixed inheritance but a responsive system, always repairable, always improvable, always one intervention away from better function.
“Every person has the capacity to heal themselves,” Turner said in the accompanying presentation material. “We’re creating new cells, removing cells that are no longer needed. We’re recycling, repairing all the time.”
That language carried the optimism that has long animated the biohacking movement. It also carried its tension. Technologies like FlexBeam sit at the intersection of science, aspiration and commerce, where promising mechanisms can quickly become lifestyle doctrine.
Still, in Helsinki, on a stage filled with fatigue, ambition and curiosity, Sarah Turner made a persuasive case that light itself had become one of the most compelling tools in the recovery arsenal. Whether FlexBeam marked a genuine step forward or simply a sleek repackaging of familiar ideas, it captured something important about the moment.
People were no longer content merely to rest. They wanted to recharge.
Part of Biohacker Summit 2020 Helsinki