TechBlog

A major advantage of nanotech drug delivery is that multiple drug molecules can be combined on one nanoparticle so that one nanoparticle binds more strongly to the drug target than would the isolated drug molecules. Attaching 12 molecules of an HIV drug to a 2.0 nm diameter gold nanoparticle enabled the drug to prevent HIV infection in cultured patient cells. From a North Caroline State University News Release
“Failed HIV Drug Gets Second Chance with Addition of Gold Nanoparticles“:

Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered that adding tiny bits of gold to a failed HIV drug rekindle the drug’s ability to stop the virus from invading the body’s immune system.

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Carbon cages can hold super-dense volumes of nearly metallic hydrogen. Hydrogen could be a clean, abundant energy source, but it’s difficult to store in bulk.

In new research, materials scientists at Rice University have made the surprising discovery that tiny carbon capsules called buckyballs are so strong they can hold volumes of hydrogen nearly as dense as those at the center of Jupiter.

The research appears on the March 2008 cover of the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano Letters.

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r. Yu-Chong Tai, professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, is an electrical engineer whose early work pioneered a new direction that is now called, “microelectromechanical systems” (MEMS). He has published on just about every facet of MEMS, from shear-stress sensors to micromachining to thermal sensors to lab-on-a-chip. His recent research forays are leading him into studies of biological systems at the micro level. According to our Special Topics analysis of MEMS research over the past decade, Dr. Tai’s work ranks at #5, with 27 qualifying papers cited a total of 272 times. In the ISI Essential Science Indicators Web product, Dr. Tai’s record includes 41 papers cited a total of 383 times to date. Dr. Tai points to some of his earlier papers and presentations, which are outside of the range of our database, as very important in the field. Among these is a presentation report (Fan L.S., Tai Y.C., Muller R.S., “IC-processed electrostatic micromotors,” Tech. Digest, IEEE International Electron Device Meeting [IEDM ’88], San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 11-14, 1988, pp.666-669; and Fan L.S., Tai Y.C., Muller R.S., “Integrated movable micromechanical structures for sensors and actuators,” IEEE Trans. On Electron Devices ED-35:724-730, 1988). Dr. Tai is a graduate of National Taiwan University and received his master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer sciences from University of California, Berkeley. He took a faculty appoint at the California Institute of Technology in 1989.

Your work is in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Could you explain what this field is?

The name MEMS didn’t even exist in the ‘80s while I was in graduate school. My major was integrated circuits (IC) then. I learned solid-state devices and IC technology. So I know how to make these devices. It all started with an interesting question. We knew that the IC industry was really big in the 1980s. People had already invested billions, if not trillions, of dollars in IC technology. The question was: can we do something with the IC technology for applications other than IC? In other words, IC technology is a huge investment, could something else benefit from it? Here, IC is really only electrical devices. What devices, other than electrical devices, could we build? From an academic point of view, this whole world is either electrical or mechanical. For example, even biology and its fundamental science are all electrical or mechanical. Similarly, chemistry is no different.

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