BU Engineer

ENG Research Briefs

by Joan Schwartz

Finding Useful Links

A new tool developed by a team led by Charles DeLisi, BU’s Arthur G. B. Metcalf Professor of Science and Engineering and director of ENG’s Bioinformatics Program, promises to help scientists make useful connections among the vast amount of data about proteins and genomic sequences generated over the past three decades and better understand how they control life functions.

Predictome is a relational database that can be used to predict links between the proteins of the genomes of 44 species. It uses both computational and experimental methods to generate links. Authors Joseph Mellor (ENG’04) and Itai Yanai (ENG’02), graduate students in the Bioinformatics Program, term the tool a “hypothesis machine” because it allows researchers to screen large sets of data and detect interesting relationships among proteins for further study.

While genes provide the building plan for a particular organism, it is the proteins produced by the genes that create and maintain the organism. In humans, for example, proteins not only are the chemical building blocks of tissue, but as hormones, enzymes, and antibodies, proteins also regulate how the body functions. By better understanding the complex interactions between proteins, scientists are gaining a better understanding of how cells function and what happens when they malfunction—as in diseases such as cancer or diabetes.

Green Power

Srikanth Gopalan, a College of Engineering assistant professor of manufacturing engineering, envisions a day in the not too distant future when individual homes will manufacture their own electric power, free of the grid and the massive generating plants we now depend on for electricity. With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Gopalan and colleagues at ENG and at industrial partner Siemens-Westinghouse are moving toward the creation of highly efficient solid oxide fuel cells. Housed in an appliance about the size of a modern furnace, these devices will provide enough power to run a household.

Like batteries, fuel cells are composed of two electrodes surrounding an electrolyte. Unlike batteries, they do not run down. They produce electricity, with water and heat as by-products, as long as they are supplied with steady streams of oxygen and hydrogen. While oxygen can be used directly from the air, hydrogen must be derived from natural gas or other fossil fuels—but since fuel cells are extraordinarily efficient, they hold the promise of dramatically reducing carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions, as well as decreasing our dependence on imported oil.

Unlike some types of cells that require a preliminary process to release the hydrogen from fuel, solid oxide cells, operating at temperatures of close to 1000 degrees centigrade, can use fossil fuels directly. The researchers are currently developing methods to allow the cells to operate at lower temperatures so that they can be built with less expensive metal alloys, making them commercially feasible.

In related work, Gopalan is developing a ceramic membrane able to produce a steady stream of pure hydrogen to fuel the low-temperature cells now being developed to power automobiles. One day, according to Gopalan, you may drive up to a pump that uses this membrane and fill your car’s tank—not with gasoline, but with hydrogen.

Spooky Vision

A quartet of scientists in the department of electrical and computer engineering’s Quantum Imaging Laboratory are orchestrating a revolutionary technique to make the invisible visible. Using entangled photons, a phenomenon that Einstein described as “spooky action at a distance,” they are developing a process that will enable them to create holographic images of concealed objects.

The technology uses beams of entangled photons, photon pairs generated by passing laser light through a nonlinear optical crystal. The twin photons are inextricably linked, even though they may be some distance from each other.

As soon as a property of one of them is measured, corresponding information about its partner is instantly known. To create the holographic image, one photon of the pair is directed into a sphere containing the object to be imaged. As the photons scatter from the object, they strike the photosensitive surface of the chamber’s inner wall—the time the photon hits the wall is recorded, but there is no record of where on the wall the photon has hit. The companion beam is sent through a conventional optical system and detected using a single-photon-sensitive high-resolution scanning detector. The combination of both sets of data provides sufficient coherent information to reconstruct the hidden object.

Although still theoretical, the team, led by Bahaa Saleh, an ENG professor and chairman of the department, and including colleagues Professor Malvin Teich, Associate Professor Alexander Sergienko, and doctoral candidate Ayman Abouraddy (ENG’02), expects to begin building an experimental system soon. They had previously created a high-resolution noninvasive imaging technology—entangled-photon fluorescence microscopy—based on the same principles.


ENG Research Briefs by Joan Schwartz Finding Useful Links A new tool developed by a team led by Charles DeLisi, BU’s Arthur G. B. Metcalf Professor of Science and Engineering and director of ENG’s Bioinformatics Program, promises to help scientists make useful connections among the vast amount of data about proteins and genomic sequences generated over the past three decades and better understand how they control life functions. Predictome is a relational database that can be used to predict links between the proteins of the genomes of 44 species. It uses both computational and experimental methods to generate links. Authors Joseph Mellor (ENG’04) and Itai Yanai (ENG’02), graduate students in the Bioinformatics Program, term the tool a “hypothesis machine” because it allows researchers to screen large sets of data and detect interesting relationships among proteins for further study. While genes provide the building plan for a particular organism, it is the proteins produced by the genes that create and maintain the organism. In humans, for example, proteins not only are the chemical building blocks of tissue, but as hormones, enzymes, and antibodies, proteins also regulate how the body functions. By better understanding the complex interactions between proteins, scientists are gaining a better understanding of how cells function and what happens when they malfunction—as in diseases such as cancer or diabetes. Green Power Srikanth Gopalan, a College of Engineering assistant professor of manufacturing engineering, envisions a day in the not too distant future when individual homes will manufacture their own electric power, free of the grid and the massive generating plants we now depend on for electricity. With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Gopalan and colleagues at ENG and at industrial partner Siemens-Westinghouse are moving toward the creation of highly efficient solid oxide fuel cells. Housed in an appliance about the size of a modern furnace, these devices will provide enough power to run a household. Like batteries, fuel cells are composed of two electrodes surrounding an electrolyte. Unlike batteries, they do not run down. They produce electricity, with water and heat as by-products, as long as they are supplied with steady streams of oxygen and hydrogen. While oxygen can be used directly from the air, hydrogen must be derived from natural gas or other fossil fuels—but since fuel cells are extraordinarily efficient, they hold the promise of dramatically reducing carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions, as well as decreasing our dependence on imported oil. Unlike some types of cells that require a preliminary process to release the hydrogen from fuel, solid oxide cells, operating at temperatures of close to 1000 degrees centigrade, can use fossil fuels directly. The researchers are currently developing methods to allow the cells to operate at lower temperatures so that they can be built with less expensive metal alloys, making them commercially feasible. In related work, Gopalan is developing a ceramic membrane able to produce a steady stream of pure hydrogen to fuel the low-temperature cells now being developed to power automobiles. One day, according to Gopalan, you may drive up to a pump that uses this membrane and fill your car’s tank—not with gasoline, but with hydrogen. Spooky Vision A quartet of scientists in the department of electrical and computer engineering’s Quantum Imaging Laboratory are orchestrating a revolutionary technique to make the invisible visible. Using entangled photons, a phenomenon that Einstein described as “spooky action at a distance,” they are developing a process that will enable them to create holographic images of concealed objects. The technology uses beams of entangled photons, photon pairs generated by passing laser light through a nonlinear optical crystal. The twin photons are inextricably linked, even though they may be some distance from each other. As soon as a property of one of them is measured, corresponding information about its partner is instantly known. To create the holographic image, one photon of the pair is directed into a sphere containing the object to be imaged. As the photons scatter from the object, they strike the photosensitive surface of the chamber’s inner wall—the time the photon hits the wall is recorded, but there is no record of where on the wall the photon has hit. The companion beam is sent through a conventional optical system and detected using a single-photon-sensitive high-resolution scanning detector. The combination of both sets of data provides sufficient coherent information to reconstruct the hidden object. Although still theoretical, the team, led by Bahaa Saleh, an ENG professor and chairman of the department, and including colleagues Professor Malvin Teich, Associate Professor Alexander Sergienko, and doctoral candidate Ayman Abouraddy (ENG’02), expects to begin building an experimental system soon. They had previously created a high-resolution noninvasive imaging technology—entangled-photon fluorescence microscopy—based on the same principles.
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