 a certain shape." His student quickly realized that the peptide he had made was something new, and Matsui discovered that it functioned like an electric wire and could absorb biomolecules. That sent him down a different path of research, one that required him to learn a good deal of biology and biochemistry.
"Before this, almost nobody was thinking about using biological molecules for electronics, so we were almost the sole investigators thinking that crazy way, thinking that the hard-core semiconductor industry could marry with biology. Now many people have that idea," Matsui said.
It's hard to conceive how small a nanometer is. Web definitions call it 1/80,000th the diameter of a human hair or, at 3 nm, imagine it as a three-inch by three-inch Post-It Note seen from halfway across the planet.
Things 1 to 100 nms are inconceivably tiny. Yet scientists like Daniel Akins have made nanomaterials with amazing abilities.
A distinguished service professor of chemistry at City College, Akins has patented an inexpensive way of turning a carbon source like methane into nanotubes, which are cylinders of carbon atoms that "have fantastic properties. They're stronger than steel, conduct electricity better than the best metal conductors and have chemical properties that allow one to attach things to them." Things like gold nanoparticles that can register minute electric currents, turning nanotubes into infinitesimal sensors.
With the right blood-sampling system, such sensors could alert people with diabetes to the presence of hydrogen peroxide, which indicates insulin deficiency.
Nanostructures build themselves when scientists create the right conditions. In nature, carbon atoms bond differently, creating familiar materials like graphite, coal and diamond; in the lab, scientists can induce carbon atoms to form tubes, lattices and spheres, each possessing unique properties.
Scientists, including Akins, have used nanotubes to improve fuel cells. A fuel cell generates electricity when a catalyst (like gold or platinum) promotes the burning of a fuel (like hydrogen) in the presence of an oxidant, thereby releasing electrons. Fuel cells were conceived in 1838 and were first used commercially in the Gemini space program in 1965. But their use as a nonpolluting alternative to the internal combustion engine has stalled because they are inefficient and catalytic metals are expensive.
Nanotechnology that requires far less of the costly metals may be the solution. "We use carbon nanotubes as catalyst-assist agents, or cocatlysts. We coat particles of platinum or palladium onto the nanotubes. This improves efficiency and lowers the potential required for the chemistry to occur," he said.
Akins foresees extending his research into biofuel cells, which would use natural body processes to generate power. Imagine keeping warm in arctic conditions with a heater powered by normal blood chemistry. "When you pedal a bicycle, you're extracting energy; but with a biofuel cell, instead of having your whole system involved in generating energy, you're using a much smaller part."
Since 1988, Akins' Center for the Analysis of Structures and Interfaces has recruited many minority-group members and helped them move into doctoral work. He also was a leader in creating a subdiscipline in nanotechnology in CUNY's chemistry doctoral program. In 2000 he received the
Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
NEUROSCIENCE
The study of the development, anatomy, functioning and pathology of the brain and nervous system.
If you cut a nerve in the spinal cord, it won't spontaneously regrow. Paralysis results. Scientists had long thought that scar tissue was to blame, and it certainly does play a role.
Marie Filbin discovered something else: Nerves try to regenerate, but are stopped by a protein in the myelin sheath that protects them. Then she found that a molecule in every cell can counteract that protein, opening the door to therapies that one day may enable people with spinal cord injuries to walk and physicians to treat nerve-killing conditions like Lou Gehrig's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.
Filbin, a distinguished professor of biology at Hunter College, said myelin contains myelin-associated glycoprotein, or MAG. It is believed to prevent nerves from sprouting randomly and making the wrong connections. But when a nerve is severed, MAG and related proteins also inhibit desirable regrowth.
She discovered that when she increased the concentration of a common signaling molecule called cyclic adenosine monophosphate, or cyclic AMP, nerve axons (which carry outgoing messages from neurons) overcome the inhibitory effects of MAG and grow.
Her basic research explores how cyclic AMP "changes a neuron to enable it to grow in this inhibitory environment. We have identified what genes are turned on in response to cyclic AMP and know that the proteins that result from these genes are sufficient to overcome inhibition. We are systematically working through these different downstream effectors to see if they will allow neurons to grow, will they promote central nervous system regeneration in vivo, and how they work."
Preliminary animal research shows that "if you elevate cyclic AMP you will get the nerve to regenerate and will get some functioning back. My long-term dream is that we can artificially change the dynamics of the cytoskeleton, which is to nerves what bones are to the body, to get nerves to regenerate," she said.
Clinical trials, though, are still far off.
Despite the potential of her work and five patents either approved or pending, Filbin is frustrated that major pharmaceutical companies have dropped their research into nerve regeneration. Perhaps they don't see a big enough market in treating people with spinal cord injuries like the late actor Christopher Reeve, who helped secure state funding that supports her research. Or perhaps they just don't see the future evident in an aging population.
"My argument is that in motor neuron diseases, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or multiple sclerosis, you have ongoing nerve death. You have to arrest the progression of those diseases and, if you want full functional recovery, you're going to have to replace those lost neurons in an inhibitory environment. Everything we find out about regeneration after injury could be applicable to neuron replacement in degenerative diseases," Filbin said.
Anxiety, rage, depression and brain cancer form an understandable quartet, but for Probal Banerjee they encompass two distinct research projects.
The first examines how the neurotransmitter serotonin governs emotions. "We have shown for the first time that the serotonin 1A receptor in the brain plays a varied role in the early postnatal stages," said Banerjee, a professor of chemistry, biochemistry and neuroscience at the College of Staten Island.
developing integrated circuits that could lead to
ultrafast optical computers.
"In the hippocampus, which controls memory, it helps cell division just before neuronal connections are made. Then it changes its mode of action to help build neuronal connections. We are working out the signal transduction cascade, which is the sequence of events inside the neuron that regulates its electrical activity, cell division and maturation," he said. The proteins created or activated "can be our therapeutic targets in treating depression and anxiety."
The amount of serotonin in the cerebral spinal fluid affects emotions. At normal levels, serotonin is a calming agent, but having too little can trigger aggression and emotional problems including depression and suicidal tendencies.
Banerjee's team determined that a common drug for schizophrenia, clozapine, works through the serotonin 1A receptor, leading him to speculate that "many emotional disorders which surface in puberty are related to serotonin disorder."
He also studies brain tumors, taking divergent approaches.
Normally, the body's defenses recognize and destroy cells with unfamiliar surfaces. But cancer cells can hide by changing their surfaces. "By doing genetic targeting, we would alter the surface of the cancer cells in such a prominent manner that the scavenger cells would eat them up," Banerjee said.
His other approach to brain cancer employs curcumin, the main ingredient in the Asian spice turmeric. "On the Indian subcontinent, there is practically no colon cancer, although some people there have bad lifestyles; a lot of people smoke," he said. Could the reason be this pungent yellow spice, used in India to anoint the foreheads of wedding couples and in cosmetics to slough off dead cells and make the skin glow?
"Curcumin is becoming a legendary molecule, and there is a huge amount of research into it. It blocks breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, but there wasn't any research in brain cancer because, when eaten, it metabolizes before it can reach the brain."
So Banerjee developed an easily metabolized, soluble formulation of curcumin. When injected into the brain or blood of mice, it "blocks the formation of tumors and is completely harmless to normal brain cells. In fact, it protects against oxidative injuries."
Banerjee even coined a name for his curcumin therapy: "spicile," from spice and guided missile.
PHOTONICS
The study of the properties and applications of light, or energy whose basic unit is the photon.
Making photonic devices flexible and miniaturized opens many possibilities for research and practical applications, said Queens College assistant professor Vinod Menon, one of CUNY's "cluster hires" in photonics.
Take flexible display screens, which one day could rival the rigid flat screens that are now the high-definition rage. These solid-state displays are extremely thin, like the ultraviolet-absorbing films that are sometimes placed over windows, but they can emit light just like a television.
"They could be wrapped around buildings," or run up a wall or around columns. "You even could put them on clothes for identification purposes," Menon said. "And the technique of making these emitters is so simple that I even have high school students in my lab who make them."
He uses a fast-spinning machine to coat multiple layers