Dean’s Catalyst Awards Aim to Spark the Research Engine
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The following groups received this year’s Dean’s Catalyst Awards:
Sean Andersson (AME) and Natalia Broude (Center for Advanced Biotechnology) plan to stalk RNA as it meanders around a living cell. The researchers attach fluorescent tags to RNA molecules and watch their movements within the cell. Andersson and Broude are interested improving the technology needed to track the movements of RNA, which will lead to better understanding of its role in the cell. Current detection methods do not see the glowing molecules clearly since background fluorescence obscures them, much as city lights frustrate amateur astronomers. Detection methods today limit researchers: confocal microscopy is fast and high resolution, but only views a small area; a camera detects more slowly but has a much broader field of view. Andersson hopes to combine the best aspects of these methods to “develop new approaches to get the resolution in time and space we need to look at these systems.”
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Kamil Ekinci (AME) and Viktor Yakhot (AME) will combine their laboratory and theoretical expertise to study the vibration of nano-scale wires in lab-on-a-chip devices, when the chip is submerged in liquid. Because of the delicacy of these devices, experiments typically take place in a vacuum, where the researchers can detect minute changes in vibrations when tiny pieces of matter – on the order of a few atoms – fall onto the wires. This austere environment, however, is far removed from that of the human body or a biochemical solution – places the researchers hope to eventually apply this technology to detect specific proteins or chemicals. They will use their award to study how fluid changes the vibrations of the nano-wires, and whether they can adapt the device to work well when wet.
Massoud Sharif (ECE) and Selim Ünlü (ECE) will use their award to improve how scientists retrieve data from microarrays. With the use of microarray technology now moving from lab benches into clinical medicine, requirements for accuracy in results are growing more stringent. These tiny chips house a grid of many different snippets of DNA, each anchored to a distinct spot. When researchers add a specific molecule to the array, they detect the resultant interactions between DNA and their molecule of interest using techniques including fluorescence, interferometry – detecting changes in patterns of resonant light, or reflection of light from a laser. In each of these detection methods, the light signal must be processed into a format that researchers understand. Sharif and Ünlü will work on improving signal processing techniques, developing new algorithms to overcome the problems of noise, distortion and randomness that can accompany the desired signals, obfuscating useful results.
Luca Dal Negro (ECE) and Robert Kotiuga (ECE) plan to create disorder, but also control it to make intense optical fields. In the past, researchers thought creating optical fields on a nano scale, with lengths shorter than the wavelength of light itself, only occurred randomly in metal nanostructures. If these optical fields could not be controlled, then engineers could not use them for nanophotonic devices. Dal Negro and Kotiuga will work on a new strategy to generate and control these tiny, intense optical fields on reproducible nano-scale arrays of metal particles. Unlike random arrays, “they appear random, but are not,” said Dal Negro. Photonic devices including chemical and biochemical sensors, nano-scale light sources and other building blocks for miniaturized optical systems may all benefit from this work. “The approach will introduce novel design rules for nanophotonics devices, stimulating the next miniaturization step in optical technologies,” said Dal Negro.
The application deadline for the next round of Dean’s Catalyst Awards is in January 2008. All full-time tenured and tenure-track Engineering faculty are eligible.