Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 21, 2005|Volume 34, Number 8

Grant supports scientist's work
related to nanomedicine

A Yale scientist is among the recipients of a $6.5 million center grant from the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that is intended to rapidly launch revolutionary ideas in the use of nanomedicine and serve as the centerpiece of the NIH Nanomedicine Roadmap Initiative.

David LaVan, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and member of Yale's Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program, will participate in the National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors, one of the four centers funded. The center will be led by Professor Eric G. Jakobsson at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The five-year grant will support a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional project to design, model, synthesize and fabricate nanomedical devices based on natural and synthetic ion transporters, proteins that control ion motion across the membrane of every living cell. Nanomedicine operates at the biological molecule scale of 100 nanometers or less to cure disease or repair damaged tissues. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

The first target for the center will be to design a class of devices for generating electric power -- biobatteries -- for a wide array of implantable devices, including an artificial retina. LaVan, who was recently awarded a grant from the Keck Foundation to develop novel materials to convert sunlight into electricity, will oversee design of the biobattery for the center.

"This focus is intended to leverage our significant understanding of ion transport at the molecular level," says LaVan, who chaired a group at the 2004 National Academies Keck Futures Conference, titled "Designing Nanostructures," where aspects of this project were formulated.

"We are set to develop revolutionary new devices to treat disease and to develop implantable devices that mimic natural functions," he adds.

The team expects to construct several categories of devices including sensors, power sources, energy transducers and osmotic pumps to be used as either research platforms or as the basis for new generations of implantable medical devices.

Other center participants are from the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California, the Illinois Institute of Technology, Purdue University, Sandia National Laboratories, the University of California at Davis, Wabash College, Weill Medical College of Cornell University and the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

University dedicates Malone Engineering Center

Biomedical engineering symposium also marked dedication

Celebrated language-learning program enters digital age

Coach is helping to steer city rowers to victory

Yale offers staff new incentives to car-pool

In Focus: Whitney Humanities Center

Tanner Lecture, related events focus on food and art of autobiography

Grant supports scientist's work related to nanomedicine

Scientists identify gene that plays a role in Tourette's Syndrome

Noted journalist Bob Woodward to deliver the Fryer Memorial Lecture

Show reveals 'journey' of reconstructive surgery patients

Career Fair to highlight jobs in federal government agencies

Troupe to present two nights of one-act operas

Novelist will read from his latest work of fiction

Exhibit traces roots of Tiananmen Square movement

Reparations for slavery to be among topics of conference

Talk, symposium examine how artists 'remade the past'

David Blight is speaker for library's next 'Books Sandwiched In'