[Editors] MIT Research Digest, March 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

======================================
MIT Research Digest, March 2007
======================================

For Immediate Release
FRIDAY, MAR. 2, 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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IN THIS ISSUE: Bubble Logic * Ethanol Optimism * Optics on a Chip
Tumor Defense Mechanism * Microsieve * Storing CO2 Underground
Genetics of Schizophrenia * Analog Advance * Potential Energy Source
Learning to See * Extrasolar Planets * Adult Stem Cells
Designing Better Materials * Computer Object Recognition
Biodiesel at MIT * Elder Care Handbook * Global Warming Report
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


BUBBLE LOGIC
In work that could dramatically boost the capabilities of "lab on a 
chip" devices, MIT researchers have created a way to use tiny bubbles 
to mimic the capabilities of a computer. The team, based at MIT's 
Center for Bits and Atoms, reports that the bubbles in their 
microfluidic device can carry on-chip process control information, 
just like the electronic circuits of a traditional microprocessor, 
while also performing chemical reactions. The work appeared in a Feb. 
issue of Science. "Bubble logic merges chemistry with computation, 
allowing a digital bit to carry a chemical payload. Until now, there 
was a clear distinction between the materials in a reaction and the 
mechanisms to control them," said co-author Neil Gershenfeld, 
director of the Center for Bits and Atoms and associate professor of 
media arts and sciences. The work was supported by the NSF.
PHOTOS, IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/bubbles.html

ETHANOL OPTIMISM
As the search for alternative fuel sources intensifies, more and more 
attention has been focused on ethanol--a fuel many see as desirable 
because it burns cleanly and can be produced from plants. In February 
two MIT chemical engineering professors weighed in on ethanol's 
potential -- Professor Gregory Stephanopoulos, in a Feb. 9 article 
for Science, and Professor Kristala Jones Prather, who testified 
during a Senate hearing on biofuels Feb. 1. Both professors expressed 
optimism that biofuels can become a significant part of the U.S. 
energy supply but said that much more research must be done before 
ethanol can reach its full potential. "Biofuels represent a grand 
challenge in technology," Prather told the Senate Committee on Energy 
and Natural Resources. "There is no single silver bullet that will 
make a robust transportation fuels industry a reality."
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biofuels.html

OPTICS ON A CHIP
In work that could lead to completely new devices, systems and 
applications in computing and telecommunications, MIT researchers are 
bringing the long-sought goal of "optics on a chip" one step closer 
to market. In the inaugural issue of the journal Nature Photonics, 
the team reports a novel way to integrate photonic circuitry on a 
silicon chip. Adding the power and speed of light waves to 
traditional electronics could achieve system performance 
inconceivable by electronic means alone. The MIT invention will 
enable such integrated devices to be mass-manufactured for the first 
time. And, depending on the growth of the telecom industry, the new 
devices could be in demand within five years, said co-author Erich 
Ippen, a professor of electrical engineering and physics. The new 
technology will also enable supercomputers on a chip with unique 
high-speed capabilities for signal processing, spectroscopy and 
remote testing, among other fields. This work was supported by 
Pirelli Labs in Milan, Italy.
PHOTO, IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/optics.html

TUMOR DEFENSE MECHANISM
MIT researchers have identified a critical defense mechanism that 
tumor cells employ to survive the toxic effects of 
chemotherapy--knowledge that could very soon lead to more effective 
cancer treatments.  The findings, reported as the cover story in the 
Feb. 13 issue of Cancer Cell, show that after chemotherapy, many 
tumors resort to using a signaling pathway normally associated with 
the inflammatory response in order to survive. Drugs that knock out 
this inflammatory defense mechanism would render tumors vastly more 
susceptible to chemotherapy, according to Michael Yaffe, an MIT 
professor of biology and biological engineering, and leader of the 
research team. One such drug is already in the pipeline. "In the 
clinic, we could use lower doses of chemotherapy and get a more 
profound reduction of the tumor with fewer side effects in patients 
by targeting this pathway," said Yaffe, who is affiliated with MIT's 
Cancer for Cancer Research, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, 
and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The research is funded by 
the David H. Koch Fund and the NIH.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/cancer-yaffe.html

MICROSIEVE
A new MIT microchip system promises to speed up the separation and 
sorting of biomolecules such as proteins. The work is important 
because it could help scientists better detect certain molecules 
associated with diseases, potentially leading to earlier diagnoses or 
treatments. The microchip system has an extremely tiny sieve 
structure built into it that can sort through continuous streams of 
biological fluids and separate proteins accurately by size. 
Conventional separation methods employ gels, which are slower and 
more labor-intensive to process. The new microchip system could sort 
proteins in minutes, as compared to the hours necessary for gel-based 
systems. The team's results appeared in a Feb. issue of Nature 
Nanotechnology. "With this technology we can isolate interesting 
proteins faster and more efficiently. And because it can process such 
small biologically relevant entities, it has the potential to be used 
as a generic molecular sieving structure for a more complex, 
integrated biomolecule preparation and analysis system," said 
Jongyoon Han, a professor of electrical engineering and of biological 
engineering, and head of the MIT team. Funding came from the NSF, the 
NIH and the Singapore-MIT Alliance.
PHOTO, IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/sieve.html

STORING CO2 UNDERGROUND
A new analysis led by an MIT scientist describes a mechanism for 
capturing carbon dioxide emissions from a power plant and injecting 
the gas into the ground, where it would be trapped naturally as tiny 
bubbles and safely stored in briny porous rock.  This means that it 
may be possible for a power plant to be built in an appropriate 
location and have all its carbon dioxide emissions captured and 
injected underground throughout the life of the power plant, and then 
safely stored over centuries and even millennia. The carbon dioxide 
eventually will dissolve in the brine and a fraction will adhere to 
the rock in the form of minerals such as iron and magnesium 
carbonates. Carbon dioxide is one of the primary greenhouse gases 
contributing to global warming. Studies have shown that reducing 
carbon dioxide emissions or capturing and storing the emissions 
underground in a process called sequestration is vital to the health 
of our planet. But one of the biggest risks of any sequestration 
project is the potential leak of the injected gas back into the 
atmosphere through abandoned wells or underground cracks.  In a paper 
published in a recent issue of Water Resources Research, MIT 
Professor Ruben Juanes and co-authors assert that injected carbon 
dioxide will likely not flow back up to the surface and into the 
atmosphere, as many researchers fear. The work was funded by 
industrial affiliates of the Petroleum Research Institute at Stanford 
University.
GRAPHIC AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/co2-0207.html

GENETICS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA
Gene mutations governing a key brain enzyme make people susceptible 
to schizophrenia and may be targeted in future treatments for the 
psychiatric illness, according to MIT and Japanese researchers. 
According to the National Institute for Mental Health, an estimated 
51 million people worldwide suffer from schizophrenia. Although 80 
percent of schizophrenia cases appear to be inherited, the specific 
genetic components underlying individuals' susceptibility and 
pathology are largely unknown. The work, by scientists from MIT's 
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Japan's RIKEN Brain 
Science Institute, was reported in a recent issue of the Proceedings 
of the National Academy of Sciences. MIT's Susumu Tonegawa, a 
professor of biology and neuroscience, was part of the research team. 
This work was funded in part by the RIKEN Brain Science Institute.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/schizophrenia.html

ANALOG ADVANCE
Advances in digital electronic circuits have prompted the boost in 
functions and ever-smaller size of such popular consumer goods as 
digital cameras, MP3 players and digital televisions. But the same 
cannot be said of the older analog circuits in the same devices, 
which process natural sights and sounds in the real world. Because 
analog circuits haven't enjoyed a similar rate of progress, they are 
draining power and causing other bottlenecks in improved consumer 
electronic devices. Now MIT engineers have devised new analog 
circuits they hope will change that. Their work was discussed at the 
International Solid State Circuits Conference Feb. 11-15. "During the 
past several decades engineers have focused on allowing signals to be 
processed and stored in digital forms," said Hae-Seung Lee, a 
professor in MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories and the 
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "But most 
real-world signals are analog signals, so analog circuits are an 
essential part of most electronic systems." This research was funded 
by the Microelectronics Advanced Research Corp., the MIT Center for 
Integrated Circuits and Systems and a National Defense Science and 
Engineering Graduate Fellowship.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/circuit.html

POTENTIAL ENERGY SOURCE
For about six months of the year, bursts of a hot, electrically 
charged gas, or plasma, swirl around a donut-shaped tube in a special 
MIT reactor, helping scientists learn more about a potential future 
energy source: nuclear fusion. During downtimes when the reactor is 
offline, engineers make upgrades that will help them achieve their 
goal of making fusion a viable energy source--a long-standing mission 
that will likely continue for decades. MIT's reactor, known as 
Alcator C-Mod, is one of several tokamak plasma discharge reactors in 
the world. Inside the reactor, magnetic fields control the 
superheated plasma (up to 50 million degrees Kelvin) as it flows 
around the tube. Fusion occurs when two deuterons, or one deuteron 
and one triton--nuclei of heavy hydrogen--fuse, creating helium and 
releasing energy. Although MIT's reactor is smaller than others, it 
has a stronger magnetic field than some larger reactors, allowing the 
plasma to become denser at comparable temperatures. "That positions 
us to provide important data you can't get anywhere else," said Earl 
Marmar, head of MIT's Alcator C-Mod project. Marmar is a senior 
research scientist in MIT's Department of Physics and at MIT's Plasma 
Science and Fusion Center, where the Alcator C-Mod device is located. 
Alcator C-Mod is funded by the DOE; it is a national facility.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/alcator.html

LEARNING TO SEE
How does the human brain "learn" to see? If the brain is deprived of 
visual input early in life, can it later learn to see at all? MIT 
researchers are exploring those questions by studying some unique 
patients--people who were born blind, or blinded very young, and 
later had their sight restored. Doctors have long believed that 
children who were blind during a "critical period" early in life had 
little hope of learning how to see even if vision were later 
restored, so they were reluctant to offer potentially risky surgical 
treatments such as cataract removal to children older than 5 or 6. 
However, in a recent case study, the MIT researchers found that a 
woman who had her vision restored at the age of 12 performed almost 
normally on a battery of high-level vision tests when they studied 
her at the age of 32. The study appears in a recent issue of 
Psychological Science. The new research "shows that the brain is 
still malleable" in older children, says Pawan Sinha, senior author 
and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. This 
knowledge could benefit thousands of blind children around the world, 
particularly in developing nations, who were previously thought to be 
too old to receive eye treatment. The research was funded by the 
Merck Scholars Fund and the National Eye Institute.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/blindness-0214.html

EXTRASOLAR PLANETS
So far, astronomers have discovered about 200 planets outside our 
solar system, known as "extrasolar" planets. Very little is known 
about most of them, but for the first time, scientists have obtained 
new information about the atmospheres of two such planets by 
splitting apart the light emitted from them. MIT Professor Sara 
Seager of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary 
Sciences, is part of a research group based at Goddard Space Flight 
Center that studied a planet about 904 trillion miles from Earth, 
known as HD 209458b. The researchers used NASA's Spitzer Space 
Telescope to capture the most detailed information yet about an 
extrasolar planet. Seager's team was one of three that reported 
spectral observations of extrasolar planets in the Feb. 22 issue of 
Nature. Seager's team's research was funded by NASA, the Goddard 
Center for Astrobiology, the Spitzer Theory Program and the Carnegie 
Institute of Washington.
IMAGES AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/planet.html

ADULT STEM CELLS
MIT researchers have developed a technique to encourage the survival 
and growth of adult stem cells, a step that could help realize the 
therapeutic potential of such cells. Adult stem cells, found in many 
tissues in the body, are precursor cells for specific cell types. For 
example, stem cells found in the bone marrow develop into blood 
cells, bone cells and other connective tissues, and neural stem cells 
develop into brain tissue. Those stem cells hold great promise for 
treatment of injuries and some diseases, says MIT professor of 
biological engineering Linda Griffith. Griffith is the senior author 
of a recent study showing that when presented in the right physical 
context, certain growth factors encourage the survival and 
proliferation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells grown outside of 
the body. The work offers hope that one day, stem cells removed from 
a patient could be transplanted to an injury site and induced to grow 
into new, healthy tissue. The research, which appears in Stem Cells, 
was funded by the NIH and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/stem-cells.html

DESIGNING BETTER MATERIALS
Researchers from MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology and Ohio State 
University have developed a new computer modeling approach to study 
how materials behave under stress at the atomic level, offering 
insights that could help engineers design materials with an ideal 
balance between strength and resistance to failure. When designing 
materials, there is often a tradeoff between strength and ductility 
(resistance to breaking)--properties that are critically important to 
the performance of materials. Recent advances in nanotechnology have 
allowed researchers to manipulate a material's nanostructure to make 
it both strong and ductile. Now, the MIT team has figured out why 
some nano-designed metals behave with that desirable compromise 
between strength and ductility. The team, led by Professor Subra 
Suresh of MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering, 
published their work in the Feb. 27 issue of the Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences. The research was funded by the NSF, the 
ONR, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the DOE, the Ohio 
Supercomputer Center and the Defense University Research Initiative 
in NanoTechnology.
IMAGE, PHOTOS AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/suresh-materials.html

COMPUTER OBJECT RECOGNITION
For the first time, MIT scientists have applied a computer model of 
how the brain processes visual information to a complex, real world 
task: recognizing the objects in a busy street scene. The researchers 
were pleasantly surprised at the power of this new approach. "Our 
work is biologically inspired computer science," said Tomaso Poggio, 
an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the McGovern 
Institute for Brain Research and co-director of the Center for 
Biological and Computational Learning. Near-term applications include 
population surveillance and assistance for automobile drivers; 
eventually, applications could include visual search engines, 
biomedical imaging analysis and robots with realistic vision. On the 
neuroscience end, this research is essential for designing augmented 
sensory prostheses, such as ones that could replicate the 
computations carried by damaged nerves from the retina. The work is 
reported in the March 2007 IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and 
Machine Intelligence. It was partially funded by DARPA, the ONR, the 
NSF and the NIH.
PHOTO, IMAGE AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/surveillance.html

BIODIESEL at MIT
MIT Dining's Fry-o-lators work almost around the clock to serve up 
French fries and chicken fingers. And every month, MIT pays $1.10 a 
gallon to cart away the used-up vegetable oil that made those fried 
foods taste so good. A student-led initiative known as Biodiesel at MIT 
wants to see that dark brown waste liquid processed on campus into 
certifiable biodiesel and pumped into the tanks of MIT's growing 
number of diesel campus vehicles, such as the Tech Shuttles, which 
will soon use up to 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year. The goal, 
according to Matt Zedler, a senior mechanical engineering major from 
Richmond, Va., is to have this up and running by April. It's 
ambitious, he admitted, but the group of around 20 students and 
administrators is confident they can make it happen.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biodiesel.html

ELDER CARE HANDBOOK
The MIT Workplace Center's research on the geriatric health care 
system in the Greater Boston area has concluded that families are 
playing an increasingly important role in the care of elders. A new 
publication, "The Family Caregiver Handbook: Finding Elder Care 
Resources in Massachusetts," produced by the center, was recently 
released at a public forum held at MIT. A panel of elder-care 
experts, service providers and advocates discussed ideas and methods 
of expanding support for those who care for elders. "The handbook has 
two major purposes," said Ann Bookman, executive director of the MIT 
Workplace Center. "First, it provides a gateway to the many 
elder-care services and resources that exist at the community level, 
and second, it brings visibility and recognition to the crucial work 
that elder caregivers do. We found in our research that family 
caregivers constitute a 'shadow workforce' in the geriatric health 
care system. We hope the handbook will highlight the valuable care so 
many families are providing to elders in our society and give them 
the tools they need to do it more easily."
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/sloan-eldercare.html

GLOBAL WARMING REPORT
Last month's release of a widely anticipated international report on 
global warming coincides with a growing clamor within the United 
States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent the potentially 
devastating consequences of global climate change. "There's more 
interest in this now than at any time in the last 20 years," says 
Ronald Prinn, a professor of atmospheric sciences at MIT, who was a 
lead author of the report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change (IPCC). The report, a 21-page summary of a much longer 
study on the science behind climate change, concludes there is a 
greater than 90 percent chance that greenhouse gases from human 
activity are responsible for most of the steadily rising average 
global temperatures observed in the past 50 years. "There's clear 
evidence that greenhouse gases have been increasing by very large 
amounts since preindustrial times, and the vast majority of these 
increases are due to human activity," said Prinn, whose specific task 
on the panel was to assess this issue.
PHOTO AVAILABLE
MORE: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/climate.html

--END--