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Palm-sized computers and ever-smaller cell phones have transformed our way of life-we have learned to put more power and functionality into smaller and smaller devices. Nanotechnology promises to shrink things even further. Engineering Professor Thomas Bifano, for example, has developed arrays of tiny mirrors, up to 200 of them on a chip only three millimeters across, each of them able to move independently and precisely. With their ability to manipulate reflected light, the mirror arrays can be used to substantially improve the resolution of earth-based telescopes looking out through the earth's atmosphere. They can also be used by physicians to see the retina clearly through the eye's normally cloudy vitreous liquid and can improve the quality of wireless communication by transmitting clearer signals using laser beams.
Also under way in Bifano's lab is a multidisciplinary program to develop chips holding high-density protein arrays for basic research, drug discovery, and medical diagnosis. While sequencing the human genome is an important first step in the biomedical revolution, the primary function of genes is to make proteins, and proteins regulate most biological functions, serve as the principal targets of drugs, and are implicated in many diseases. Proteomics, the study of proteins, is emerging as one of the most important fields of biomedical research in the coming century. Bifano's expertise in fabricating ultraprecise micro-mirror systems coupled to a microscale fluidic system provides the basis for building the protein array chips. The multi-disciplinary research team includes Adnan Derti, a Ph.D. student in the bioinformatics program, as well as faculty and students from the departments of manufacturing engineering, bioinformatics, biomedical engineering, chemistry and biology. |
