Industry Spotlight Education
News Briefs
Big Data
Heng Huang, Ph.D., is an
associate professor at UT
Arlington and leading investigator on a new National
Science Foundation project
to mine and decipher
electronic medical records
data. Since increasingly
large amounts of “big data”
are being generated in the
health care industry, his
research could not only help
physicians predict health
care needs, but also identify risks that can lead to
readmission, such as heart
failure patients.
UTD Space Devise
Dr. Rod Heelis, director
of UT Dallas’ William B.
Hanson Center for Space
Sciences, and his colleagues were chosen to
design and build an experimental instrument that will
be onboard a new NASA
satellite mission called the
Ionospheric Connection
Explorer (ICON), scheduled
for launch in 2017. The ICON
satellite will orbit about
350 miles above earth in
the ionosphere and will
carry instruments built by
various other institutions as
well. The UTD instrument,
the Ion Velocity Meter, will
gather data, such as velocity, temperature and density
of ions at the site of the
spacecraft, while other
instruments will remotely
measure the state of the
neutral atmosphere below
the satellite, focusing on
the interaction between
surface weather and space
weather.
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Targeted relief
TCU chemistry group experiments
with nanotubes in precise biological
delivery of medicine
M
ention the word ‘silicon’ and most think of its
use in computer chips. But Dr. Jeffery Coffer,
chemistry professor at TCU, is working with
researchers to create a new form of silicon, crystalline
silicon nanotubes, and studying their ability to deliver
drugs in a very targeted manner.
“As it turns out,” says Coffer, “silicon, especially
when sculpted into very small sizes, has other potential
important uses - one being improving human health!”
His research group at TCU is investigating potential
uses of silicon in nanoscale form.
How small? “Ultrasmall, a billionth of a meter,”
Coffer explained.
Another possible use for the silicon nanotubes is a
platform for “magnetic assisted drug delivery,” where
a drug is added to a magnetic nanostructure, injected
into the blood stream, and a magnet is used to deliver
the drug to a precise location.
Coffer explained that nanoparticles are often difficult to ‘herd together.’ The incorporation of iron oxide nanocrystals into silicon nanotubes allows them to
be manipulated with a simple magnet and isolates the
drug, located on the outside of the nanotube, from the
magnetic nanoparticle at the diseased site in the body.
Coffer’s research group is also developing new sustainable routes to the manufacturing of nanoscale silicon for drug delivery based on “accumulator plants.”
Since bamboo and rice are convenient sources of silicon that can be transformed into porous silicon material with large surface areas, they are also capable of
loading large amounts of a useful drug.
“Use of plant material for this purpose is ideal,”
Coffer said, “as the farmers who typically raise these
specific crops often simply burn the husk away after
harvesting the plant.”
Is it possible that Silicon Valley has a new address
in a rice paddy or cornfield?
Does size matter?
Definitely, says Dr. Eric Simanek, professor of chemistry
at TCU. While much of the focus of his laboratory over
the last five years has been on developing new ways to
deliver cancer drugs to tumors using “nano,” he recognized other opportunities growing from his research.
Consider his comparison of size: If mechanics
worked on engines that measure a few feet across, and
nephrologists work on kidneys that are 20x smaller,
cell biologists work on the tiny: cells, and chemists on
drug molecules 10,000 smaller still, what would happen if mechanics worked on cells and nephrologists
worked on engines?
“Something interesting,” says Simanek. “New ways
of thinking about solutions to real world problems can
come from dialogues between very different people.
What would happen if organic chemists started thinking about virus-sized molecules?”
Keep in mind that chemists usually make small
molecules with tens of atoms, like aspirin and other
drugs we take, while viruses are enormous and molecules the size of viruses are rare.
Simanek’s team applied their skill and made a virus-sized molecule, work that requires a number of
different skill sets. While his laboratory made the molecules, he needed help analyzing them. TCU colleague
and professor Dr. Onofrio Annunziata provided the
first clues that molecules were indeed virus-sized –
they are so large, in fact, that collaborators in Finland
and the Czech Republic could see them using electron
and atomic force microscopes, respectively.
A computer model of the molecules, with all 1.3
million atoms, was created in Switzerland to provide
the international team the final piece of the puzzle.
“The advantage of this research, which can be
called ‘basic science,’ is that applications might be
found anywhere,” Simanek explains. “We have had interest from researchers around the planet who think
these curious molecules might be the basis for the next
generation of materials, useful for gene therapy or help
fight infectious disease. We are excited to play our role
in these missions.”
“New ways of thinking
about solutions to real world
problems can come from
dialogues between very
different people.”