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Provost's Innovation Fund boosts research with commercial potential

By David J. Craig

In science and engineering, where the possibilities for turning basic research into commercial products are limitless, so too is the potential monetary value of such research. But when scientists develop novel ideas using federal grants, they must immediately make their discoveries public knowledge. If they want to patent them in hopes of later profit, it must be done in a way that does not delay publication.

	BU Provost Dennis Berkey (center) with the winners of this year's Provost's Innovation Fund, an award program that provides money to BU scientists and engineers whose basic research is judged to have commercial potential. The winners are (from left) Vadim Demidov, an ENG senior research associate, Fred Schubert, an ENG professor of electrical and computer engineering, Joyce Wong, an ENG assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and Bela Suki, an ENG assistant professor of biomedical engineering. Photo by Vernon Doucette

In order to ensure that BU researchers develop and eventually benefit from their commercially viable ideas, the Office of the Provost two years ago created a program to facilitate basic research in science and engineering that is likely to lead to patent applications, royalties on licenses, and new products and companies. Through the Provost's Innovation Fund, the office awards about $25,000 to up to four BU researchers annually. All faculty members at the Charles River Campus are eligible for the award.

"Provost [Dennis] Berkey felt that the University needed to encourage its faculty to take some of the ideas they were working on in their laboratories and turn them into licensable technology," says Carol Simpson, associate provost for research and graduate education. "The awards encourage innovation, and they facilitate research that otherwise wouldn't be done." Ideally, says Simpson, researchers who receive the award will secure patents for their discoveries and pursue collaborations with high-tech companies to bring their technology to the market, or launch their own company, such as is made possible through BU's Community Technology Fund.

Below are descriptions of the research projects that received money from the fund this May, for work to be completed during the next 12 months.

Unlocking DNA's secrets

Vadim Demidov is one of several researchers at the ENG Center for Advanced Biotechnology who recently discovered a new way to detect changes in DNA caused by mutations and viruses. Demidov, an ENG senior research associate, and colleagues including Maxim Frank-Kamenetskii, an ENG biomedical engineering professor, designed a tiny bimolecular device, called a PD-loop, which can identify foreign genetic material within DNA.

The PD-loop consists of a pair of peptide nucleic acid oligomers that mimic DNA, and thus can enter a DNA segment and detect specific genetic patterns. Because the PD-loop "is assembled on duplex DNA as it mainly exists in nature," Demidov says, "the nanotool overcomes many problems inherent in existing techniques, which require that the DNA strands be separated before a probe can be effective."

During the next year, Demidov hopes to develop a new application for the PD-loop, enabling researchers and medical analysts to create identifying incisions at "designated marker sites on duplex DNA." He says the technology will allow for the identification of viral DNA, including that associated with HIV.

"The development of a novel PD-loop technology may significantly simplify the entire field of DNA analysis," Demidov says, and could result in the early detection of HIV infection and other pathogens in latent forms of infection, and lead to other "substantial biotechnological and forensic applications."

A bright future

Fred Schubert is working to refine a light source that's exponentially more efficient and durable than incandescent or fluorescent lights. Schubert, an ENG professor of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the Photonics Center faculty, developed a potentially revolutionary source of light last year using a new chemical compound called gallium indium nitride (GaInN), and in the next year hopes to fine-tune the technology so that it is commercially viable.

The light is 10 times more efficient than an incandescent light bulb because its wavelengths can be seen by the human eye, whereas the traditional light bulb emits mostly invisible infrared light. Called PRS-LED (photon recycling semiconductor light-emitting diodes), it creates light not by heating a filament, as a light bulb does, but by sending an electrical charge to GaInN, which creates light in the blue-green range, and filtering it through a compound that yields light in the red-yellow range, which ultimately creates what the eye experiences as ambient white light. Because GaInN is extremely stable, the new light source could function for as long as 50 years, Schubert predicts, and its widespread use could reduce national energy consumption by 10 percent.

However, the way GaInN receives its electrical charge still must be perfected. At present, Schubert's invention functions at less than 10 percent efficiency. During the next year, he and his research team will employ a new electrical, or ohmic, contact that they invented last year, which should increase the efficiency of the PRS-LED's semiconductor and make the light attractive to commercial manufacturers.

"LEDs will offer new features, such as the ability to adjust the color of light in a room," says Schubert, who plans to collaborate with GELcore, a solid-state lighting company, and other companies to license and market the technology. "It's possible traditional lighting fixtures themselves will be things of the past. LEDs are so small they can be distributed, unseen, throughout a home or office."

Nontoxic lung analysis

Physicians soon may be able to locate closed airways in the lungs of emphysema and asthma patients more accurately and safely than is possible with current medical procedures because of the research of Bela Suki, a College of Engineering assistant professor of biomedical engineering.

Suki, with ENG research associate Adriano Alencar, is developing a device that will measure and analyze sounds emitted from damaged airways to determine what sections of the lung are damaged. Suki's recent research shows that in response to a temporary increase in air pressure within a lung, clusters of closed airways make tiny sounds, or "crackles," when they open. The amplitude and other auditory qualities of the crackles indicate where in the lung they originate.

Closed airways, or airway collapse, can occur among the obese, the elderly, infants with undeveloped lungs, and patients on ventilators, as well as those with emphysema and asthma. The condition impairs oxygen intake, causes discomfort, and sometimes leads to fatal asthma attacks. At present, physicians can use a computed tomographic (CT) scan, a type of X ray, to detect some closed airways, but most are too small to be seen with a CT machine, which also can cause radiation contamination if used too much.

The device Suki and Alencar are building will measure lung crackles using microphones placed on a patient's chest and possibly inside the mouth. A Windows-based computer program they are developing will analyze the acoustic data to determine the origin of the crackles. Suki hopes to test a prototype on humans within a year and eventually to market his device commercially.

"A CT machine can get a resolution of about 1.5 millimeters and our device should get a resolution at least three times better than that," says Suki, who has been studying the physics of how sound travels through lungs for about six years. "The information we gather could also lead to a new understanding of the mechanical properties of airways."

Localizing drug treatment

While diseases are often localized to specific parts of the body, the vast majority of therapeutic drugs are delivered to the entire circulatory system and can cause harmful side effects and discomfort throughout the body. But research by Joyce Wong, an ENG assistant professor of biomedical engineering, could help enable physicians to deliver drugs locally to even the least accessible body tissues, without intrusive surgery.

Currently, large concentrations of drugs can be encapsulated in synthetic liposomes, which slowly release the drugs as they travel through the body. Polymer "tethers" placed on the surface of a liposome give the drug-carrier a sort of "hairy coat" that ensures that the body's immune system does not identify it as foreign and attack it. Ligand molecules placed on the end of the tethers then locate target cells needing the drugs.

Researchers in the past have matched tethers with certain target cells through massive screening efforts, but Wong and her research team are examining how the physical properties of tethers impact the binding process.

"By examining what the impact is of a tether's length, for example, we'll have a more complete understanding of how the binding process works," says Wong. "Until now, the nature of the tether hasn't been considered an important design parameter, but our previous research has shown that it does have a significant effect. Now, we'll quantify what the effects are."

Wong's research should also yield important discoveries because it will be conducted within living cells. Factors such as fluid flow rate, which differs in various parts of the body and cannot be analyzed in static laboratory experiments, she says, impact how binding takes place.

8 June 2001
Boston University
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