[Editors] MIT Research Digest, January 2007

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-2700
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www

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MIT Research Digest, January 2007
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For Immediate Release
MONDAY, JAN. 8, 2007
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
Phone: 617-258-5402
Email: thomson at mit.edu


A monthly tip-sheet for journalists of recent research advances
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Latest research news: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/research.html
RSS -- research feed: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/mitresearch-rss.xml

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IN THIS ISSUE: Engineered Ethanol * Beyond Silicon
Of Sleep and Memories * Cancer Monitor * 3D Scaffold
Friendspotting * Anti-Microbial 'Paint' * Solar Chemistry
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ENGINEERED ETHANOL
MIT scientists have engineered yeast that can improve the speed and 
efficiency of ethanol production, a key component to making biofuels 
a significant part of the U.S. energy supply. Currently used as a 
fuel additive to improve gasoline combustibility, ethanol is often 
touted as a potential solution to the growing oil-driven energy 
crisis. But there are significant obstacles to producing ethanol: One 
is that high ethanol levels are toxic to the yeast that ferments corn 
and other plant material into ethanol. By manipulating the yeast 
genome, the researchers have engineered a new strain of yeast that 
can tolerate elevated levels of both ethanol and glucose, while 
producing ethanol faster than un-engineered yeast. The work is 
reported in a Dec. issue of Science. The MIT researchers were led by 
Hal Alper, a postdoctoral associate in the laboratories of Professor 
Gregory Stephanopoulos of chemical engineering and Professor Gerald 
Fink of the Whitehead Institute. The research was funded by the 
DuPont-MIT Alliance, the Singapore-MIT Alliance, the NIH and the DOE.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/biofuels.html

BEYOND SILICON
MIT engineers have demonstrated a technology that could introduce an 
important new phase of the microelectronics revolution that has 
already brought us iPods, laptops and much more. "Unless we do 
something very radical pretty soon, the microelectronics revolution 
that has enriched our lives in so many different ways might come to a 
screeching halt," said Jesus del Alamo, an MIT professor of 
electrical engineering and computer science and member of MIT's 
Microsystems Technology Laboratories. The problem? Engineers estimate 
that within the next 10 to 15 years we will reach the limit, in terms 
of size and performance, of the silicon transistors key to the 
industry. Each of us has several billion transistors working on our 
behalf every day in our phone, laptop, iPod, car, kitchen and more. 
As a result, scientists around the world are working on new materials 
and technologies that may be able to reach beyond the limits of 
silicon. One such material is indium gallium arsenide, or InGaAs, in 
which electrons travel many times faster than in silicon. As a 
result, it should be possible to make very small transistors that can 
switch and process information very quickly. Del Alamo's group 
recently demonstrated this by fabricating InGaAs transistors that can 
carry 2.5 times more current than state-of-the-art silicon devices. 
The work, presented at the IEEE International Electron Devices 
Meeting in December, was sponsored by Intel and the Microelectronics 
Advanced Research Corporation.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/transistor.html

OF SLEEP AND MEMORIES
Memories of our life stories may be reinforced while we sleep, MIT 
researchers reported Dec. 17 in the advance online edition of Nature 
Neuroscience. Matthew Wilson, professor of brain and cognitive 
sciences at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and a 
colleague looked at what happens in rats' brains when they dream 
about the mazes they ran while they were awake. In a landmark 2001 
study, Wilson showed that rats formed complex memories for sequences 
of events experienced while they were awake, and that these memories 
were replayed while they slept--perhaps reflecting the animal 
equivalent of dreaming. Because these replayed memories were detected 
in the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain, the researchers 
were not able to determine whether they were accompanied by the type 
of sensory experience that we associate with dreams--in particular, 
the presence of visual imagery. In the latest experiment, by 
recording brain activity simultaneously in the hippocampus and the 
visual cortex, the scientists demonstrated that replayed memories 
did, in fact, contain the visual images that were present during the 
running experience. This work is supported by the Brain Science 
Institute at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) 
in Japan and the National Institutes of Health.
IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/visual-cortex.html

CANCER MONITOR
A tiny implant now being developed at MIT could one day help doctors 
rapidly monitor the growth of tumors and the progress of chemotherapy 
in cancer patients. The implant contains nanoparticles that can be 
designed to test for different substances, including metabolites such 
as glucose and oxygen that are associated with tumor growth. It can 
also track the effects of cancer drugs: Once inside a patient, the 
implant could reveal how much of a certain cancer drug has reached 
the tumor, helping doctors determine whether a treatment is working 
in a particular patient. "You really want to have some sort of rapid 
measure of whether it's working or not, or whether you should go on 
to the next (drug)," said Michael Cima, a professor in MIT's 
Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the leader of the 
research team. Such nanoparticles have been used before, but for the 
first time, the MIT researchers have encased the nanoparticles in a 
silicone delivery device, allowing them to remain in patients' bodies 
for an extended period of time. The device can be implanted directly 
into a tumor, allowing researchers to get a more direct look at what 
is happening in the tumor over time. The researchers have presented 
their findings at recent meetings of the European Cancer Society and 
the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. This work is funded by 
the National Cancer Institute through the MIT-Harvard Center of 
Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/cancer-chip.html

3D SCAFFOLD
Stem cells grew, multiplied and differentiated into brain cells on a 
new three-dimensional scaffold of tiny protein fragments designed to 
be more like a living body than any other cell culture system. An MIT 
engineer and Italian colleagues reported the invention--which may one 
day replace the ubiquitous Petri dish for growing cells--in the Dec. 
27 issue of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE. Shuguang Zhang, 
associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering, is a 
pioneer in coaxing tiny fragments of amino acids called 
self-assembling peptides to organize themselves into useful 
structures. Working with visiting graduate student Fabrizio Gelain 
from Milan, Zhang created a designer scaffold from a network of 
protein nanofibers, each 5,000 times thinner than a human hair and 
containing pores up to 20,000 times smaller than the eye of a needle. 
The researchers were able to grow a healthy colony of adult mouse 
stem cells on the three-dimensional scaffold without the drawbacks of 
two-dimensional systems. This work was supported by Olympus Corp. and 
the NIH.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/scaffold.html

FRIENDSPOTTING
MIT researchers have unveiled a new social networking application 
that will make it possible for anyone on the Institute's 168-acre 
campus to locate anyone else, via their laptop. Known as iFIND, the 
new technology was developed by researchers in the Institute's 
SENSEable City Laboratory. iFIND will give all 20,000 members of the 
MIT community the ability to accurately calculate their location on 
campus, using WiFi access points, and to choose if, when and with 
whom they want to share it with. It could become another case of 
campus culture having a major impact on the real world, like Facebook 
or YouTube, researchers said. Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable 
City Lab and a research affiliate at the Media Laboratory, described 
this new form of social networking as "friendspotting": "Imagine 
coming out of a class in a faraway corner of the MIT campus, and 
instantly knowing which friends are nearby, or being able to 
dynamically schedule an appointment with a faculty member based on 
his or her proximity to you," he said.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/ifind.html

ANTI-MICROBIAL 'PAINT'
A new antimicrobial "paint" developed at MIT can kill influenza 
viruses that land on surfaces coated with it, potentially offering a 
new weapon in the battle against a disease that kills nearly 40,000 
Americans per year. If applied to doorknobs or other surfaces where 
germs tend to accumulate, the new substance could help fight the 
spread of the flu, says Jianzhu Chen, MIT professor of biology. 
"Because of the limited efficacies with existing (flu) vaccines and 
antivirals, there's room for other, complementary approaches," said 
Chen. In a typical year, 200,000 people in the United States are 
hospitalized from influenza virus infection, and 36,000 of them die, 
according to the Centers for Disease Control. If an avian flu 
pandemic broke out, as many experts fear, the death toll could be in 
the millions. Chen's colleagues on the work include Alexander 
Klibanov, MIT professor of chemistry and bioengineering. They 
reported the new material in an online edition of the Proceedings of 
the National Academy of Sciences. The research is funded by the U.S. 
Army, through MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, and by 
the NIH.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/anti-influenza.html

SOLAR CHEMISTRY
Chemistry's role in bridging the gap between solar energy's limited 
present use and enormous future potential was the topic of an article 
by MIT chemistry Professor Daniel Nocera and a colleague in the 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2001, 
approximately 86 percent of the world's energy was obtained from 
fossil fuels. While fuel reserves are sufficient to support an energy 
demand that is expected to triple by 2100, the more immediate problem 
lies in stabilizing excess atmospheric carbon dioxide, a key 
contributor to global warming, by adopting more carbon-neutral power. 
The sun's vast energy could be an ideal power source. The major 
hurdle to overcome is developing a cost-effective method of storage. 
"We need energy when the sun doesn't shine," said Nocera. He and 
Nathan Lewis of Caltech suggest that we borrow from nature and store 
solar energy in the form of chemical bonds, as plants do in 
photosynthesis. The mechanism would involve splitting water to 
generate oxygen and storable fuels such as methane or other 
hydrocarbons.
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/solar-nocera.html

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Elizabeth A. Thomson
Senior Science and Engineering Editor
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News Office, Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)
<thomson at mit.edu>

<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www>
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