PRATT Research News

  • October 5, 2009

    Understanding a Cell's Split Personality Aids Synthetic Circuits

    DURHAM, N.C. -- As scientists work toward making genetically altered bacteria create living "circuits" to produce a myriad of useful proteins and chemicals, they have logically assumed that the single-celled organisms would always respond to an external command in the same way. Alas, some bacteria apparently have an individualistic streak that makes them zig when the others zag. A new set of experiments by Duke University bioengineers has uncovered the existence of "bistability," in which an individual ...
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  • September 28, 2009

    DARPA-Funded Study to Detect Viral Infection Before Symptoms Appear

    The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, has awarded Duke University $19.5 million for an effort led by the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP) to design a portable, easy-to-use diagnostic device that can reveal who is infected with an upper respiratory virus before the first cough or sneeze. DARPA is interested in such a device because it could offer military commanders in the field ...
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  • September 14, 2009

    When Nano May Not Be Nano

    DURHAM, N.C. The same properties of nanoparticles that make them so appealing to manufacturers may also have negative effects on the environment and human health. However, little is known which particles may be harmful. Part of the problem is determining exactly what a nanoparticle is. A new analysis by an international team of researchers from the Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT), based at Duke University, argues for a new look at the ...
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  • September 11, 2009

    Smart Home Recognized for Innovations

    Once again, the Smart Home Program has received national attention for its contributions to making the world a greener place. This time, it was the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), who announced this week that the Duke program is one of the recipients of its Excellence in Green Building Curriculum Recognition Awards for 2009. Duke's Smart Home Program was one of five award winners in the category covering colleges and universities. The award recognizes innovative green building ...
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  • August 18, 2009

    How Mercury Becomes Toxic in the Environment

    DURHAM, N.C. Naturally occurring organic matter in water and sediment appears to play a key role in helping microbes convert tiny particles of mercury in the environment into a form that is dangerous to most living creatures. This finding is important, say Duke University environmental engineers, because it could change the way mercury in the environment is measured and therefore regulated. This particularly harmful form of the element, known as methylmercury, is a potent ...
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  • August 11, 2009

    Capping a Two-Faced Particle Gives Duke Engineers Complete Control

    DURHAM, N.C. Scientists drew fittingly from Roman mythology when they named a unique class of miniscule particles after the god Janus, who is usually depicted as having two faces looking in opposite directions. For years, scientists have been fascinated by the tantalizing possibilities of these particles for their potential applications in electronic display devices, sensors and many other devices. However, realizing these applications requires precise control over the positions and orientation of the particles, ...
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  • July 17, 2009

    Why Winning Athletes Are Getting Bigger

    DURHAM, N.C. -- While watching swimmers line up during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, former Olympic swimmer and NBC Sports commentator Rowdy Gaines quipped that swimmers keep getting bigger, with the shortest one in the current race towering over the average spectator. What may have been seen as an off-hand remark turns out to illustrate a trend in human development -- elite athletes are getting bigger and bigger. What Gaines did not know was that a ...
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  • July 14, 2009

    Two Young ECE Researchers Awarded

    Two Duke University engineers have received the highest honor given to scientists by the U.S. government. Adrienne Stiff-Roberts and Chris Dwyer, both assistant professors of electrical and computer engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, each received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The awards are intended recognize young investigators and support them in the early stages of their independent research careers. The award also carries up to $1 million in research support ...
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  • July 7, 2009

    Finding the Constant in Bacterial Communication

    DURHAM, N.C. -- The Rosetta Stone of bacterial communication may have been found. Although they have no sensory organs, bacteria can get a good idea about what's going on in their neighborhood and communicate with each other, mainly by secreting and taking in chemicals from their surrounding environment. Even though there are millions of different kinds of bacteria with their own ways of sensing the world around them, Duke University bioengineers believe they have found a ...
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  • June 30, 2009

    Triangles Go Underwater and Supersonic

    DURHAM, N.C. The seeming effortlessness as dolphins and porpoises slice through the water and the unique capabilities of the supersonic Concorde airplane have more in common than one might think. The first systematic comparative analysis of the hydrodynamic properties of the flippers of dolphins, porpoises and whales has concluded that the swept back, triangular flippers help the animal move efficiently through the water in much the same way that the jet's delta wings provide ...
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  • June 18, 2009

    Autonomous Robot Detects Shrapnel

    DURHAM, N.C. Bioengineers at Duke University have developed a laboratory robot that can successfully locate tiny pieces of metal within flesh and guide a needle to its exact location - all without the need for human assistance. The successful proof-of-feasibility experiments lead the researchers to believe that in the future, such a robot could not only help treat shrapnel injuries on the battlefield, but might also be used for such medical procedures as ...
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  • June 16, 2009

    Potential For Non-Invasive Brain Tumor Treatment

    DURHAM, N.C. --  Duke University engineers have taken a first step toward a minimally invasive treatment of brain tumors by combining chemotherapy with heat administered from the end of a catheter. The proof-of-concept study demonstrated that it should be technically possible to treat brain tumors without the side effects associated with the traditional approaches of surgery, systemic chemotherapy or radiation. The bioengineers designed and built an ultrasound catheter that can fit into large blood vessels of the ...
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  • June 10, 2009

    Writing in Air Is Not Pie in the Sky

    It's a familiar scene in airports and train stations. Hands full with luggage, briefcase, laptop or coat and there's something you need to remember, like the level and row numbers where you parked your car in the deck. What do you do? Instead of relying on your memory, or finding a place to put all your stuff down to find a pen and paper, wouldn't it be so convenient to simply write "level 4, row H" ...
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  • June 2, 2009

    Working in the Nano-World

    One of the most common pieces of equipment in any biomedical laboratory is a Coulter counter, a device which counts and characterizes individual cells in a sample by drawing a liquid, such as blood, through a small pore and measuring their electric conductance. Duke engineer Chuan-Hua Chen believes he can not only improve upon this device's ability to count smaller objects, but also come up with a device that can create tiny droplets of water to ...
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  • May 20, 2009

    Novel Approach Estimates Nanoparticles in Environment

    DURHAM, N.C. Without knowing how much of an industrial chemical is being produced, it is almost impossible for scientists to determine if it poses any threat to the environment or human health. Civil engineers at Duke University believe they have come up with a novel way of estimating how much of one such material titanium dioxide is being generated, laying the groundwork for future studies to assess any possible risks. This ...
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  • April 30, 2009

    Limping Rat Provides Sciatica Insights

    DURHAM, N.C. -- A newly developed animal model for the painful nerve condition known as sciatica should help researchers diagnose and treat it, according to Duke University bioengineers and surgeons. Sciatica is not a single disorder, but rather a diverse range of symptoms, such as numbness or pain from the lower back to the feet, radiating leg pain or difficulty in controlling the leg. It is often caused by compression, or pinching, of any of the ...
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  • April 28, 2009

    Unifying the Animate and the Inanimate Designs of Nature

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Living beings and inanimate phenomena may have more in common than previously thought. At least that is the view of Duke University engineer Adrian Bejan and Penn State biologist James Marden. What they believe connects the two worlds is a theory that flow systems from animal locomotion to the formation of river deltas -- evolve in time to balance and minimize imperfections. Flows evolve to reduce friction or other forms of resistance, ...
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  • April 22, 2009

    BME Doctoral Student Talks About Bionic Arm on 60 Minutes

    Jon Kuniholm lost part of his right arm as the result of a roadside bombing in Iraq in 2005. Since that time, the retired Marine Corps officer has been researching new designs for functional limb prostheses as a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering. As a vet and as a researcher -- he's also co-founder of a company working on arm prostheses --  he was interviewed recently by the CBS program ...
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  • April 1, 2009

    Light Reveals Breast Tumor Oxygen Status

    DURHAM, N.C. Light directed at a breast tumor through a needle can provide pathologists with biological specifics of the tumor and help oncologists choose treatment options that would be most effective for that individual patient. Duke University bioengineers have developed a light-based system that can quickly and easily provide important information about oxygen levels within a tumor while it is still in place. The new system, based on diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, gives researchers important ...
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  • March 31, 2009

    Magnetic Nano-'Shepherds' Organize Cells

    DURHAM, N.C. -- The power of magnetism may address a major problem facing bioengineers as they try to create new tissue -- getting human cells to not only form structures, but to stimulate the growth of blood vessels to nourish that growth. A multidisciplinary team of investigators from Duke University, Case Western Reserve University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst created an environment where magnetic particles suspended within a specialized solution act like molecular sheep dogs. ...
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  • March 24, 2009

    Half of Americans See Other Country as Technological Leader

    DURHAM, N.C. - Half of all Americans expect another country to emerge this century as the world's leader in addressing technological challenges that range from the economy to global warming, according to a survey of U.S. public opinion released March 3 by Duke University. Although only 34 percent of Americans gave themselves a grade of A or B for understanding "the world of engineers and what they do," 72 percent nonetheless expect the technological advancements ...
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  • March 18, 2009

    Swimming Pool Game Inspires Robot Detection

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Scientists have used a popular kids swimming pool game to guide their development of a system for controlling moving robots that can autonomously detect and capture other moving targets. Engineers from Duke University and the University of New Mexico have used the simple pursuit-evasion game "Marco Polo" to solve a complex problem -- namely, how to create a system that allows robots to not only "sense" a moving target, but intercept it. Such systems ...
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  • March 5, 2009

    Buckyballs Could Keep Water Systems Flowing

    DURHAM, N.C. Microscopic particles of carbon known as buckyballs may be able to keep the nation's water pipes clear in the same way clot-busting drugs prevent arteries from clogging up. Engineers at Duke University have found that buckyballs hinder the ability of bacteria and other microorganisms to accumulate on the membranes used to filter water in treatment plants. This attribute leads the researchers to believe that coating pipes and membranes with these nanoparticles may ...
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  • February 18, 2009

    Sophisticated Nano-Structures Assembled With Magnets

    What do Saturn and flowers have in common? As shapes, both possess certain symmetries that are easily recognizable in the natural world. Now, at an extremely small level, Researchers from Duke University and the University of Massachusetts have created a unique set of conditions in which  tiny particles within a solution will consistently assemble themselves into these and other complex shapes. By manipulating the magnetization of a liquid solution, the researchers have for the first time coaxed ...
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  • February 13, 2009

    First Step to Autonomous Breast Biopsy Robot

    Duke University bioengineers have developed a laboratory robot that can locate the earliest traces of a mass in simulated breast tissue and reach that mass with a biopsy needle all without the need for human assistance. The results of proof-of-feasibility studies lead the researchers to believe that routine medical procedures such as breast biopsies will be performed in the future with minimal human guidance, and at greater convenience and less cost to patients. The researchers ...
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  • February 3, 2009

    Young Electrical Engineer Honored for Research

    When Adrienne Stiff-Roberts decided during her high school career that she wanted to be a scientist, and then an engineer, she didn't know that she'd end up manipulating the exotic properties of quantum mechanics to perfect devices ranging from infrared cameras to solar cells. It's not surprising that the daughter of a father who taught mathematics would gravitate toward a career in academia in a science so dependent on numbers. "The first time I first became serious ...
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  • February 2, 2009

    Scattered Light Rapidly Detects Tumor Response to Chemotherapy

    By interpreting how beams of light scatter off of tumor cell samples, researchers can determine if cancer cells are responding to chemotherapeutic agents within a matter of hours. The researchers said that the new technology, which was developed by Duke University bioengineers, will not only permit clinicians to more precisely detect whether or not specific cancer drugs are working, but should give basic researchers a powerful new tool to better understand the underlying mechanisms of cancer ...
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  • January 27, 2009

    Game Provides 'Clue' to Remote Sensing

    DURHAM, N.C. -- A newly developed mathematical model that figures out the best strategy to win the popular board game CLUE could some day help robot mine sweepers navigate strange surroundings to find hidden explosives. At the simplest level, both activities are governed by the same principles, according to the Duke University scientists who developed the new algorithm. A player, or robot, must move through an unknown space searching for clues. In the case of CLUE, ...
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  • January 15, 2009

    Next Generation Cloaking Device Demonstrated

    DURHAM, N.C. A device that can bestow invisibility to an object by "cloaking" it from visual light is closer to reality. After being the first to demonstrate the feasibility of such a device by constructing a prototype in 2006, a team of Duke University engineers have produced a new type of cloaking device, which they said is significantly more sophisticated and has a broad frequency bandwidth. The latest advance was made possible by the ...
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  • December 19, 2008

    Curtarolo Wins Presidential Award From Department Of Defense

    DURHAM, N.C. In recognition of his discovery and characterization of novel combinations of elements, Duke engineer and physicist Stefano Curtarolo, Ph.D., has received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The award, the highest honor given to scientists by the federal government, also carries $1 million in research support over five years. Many federal agencies participate in the PECASE program Curtarolo was recommended by the Department of Defense's Office ...
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  • December 15, 2008

    Tiny Lasers, Big Advances

    While an undergraduate in the early 1980s at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., Nan Jokerst thought lasers were so cool she should build one herself. Using plans from a Scientific American article, she did just that in the basement of the physics building. "It worked, amazingly enough," she says with a laugh, "though I nearly electrocuted myself, which wouldn't have been good for an electrical engineer." This, her first foray into the world of laser optics ...
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  • December 15, 2008

    Harnessing Lightning and Hiding from Sound

    Steve Cummer jokingly calls himself something of a Luddite because of his stubborn refusal to give up pencil and paper as his main medium for working through ideas. But in reality, that quirk is hardly enough to justify such a title, particularly when you consider that some of those ideas he fiddles with on paper are being transformed into some of the most technically advanced and futuristic materials ever devised. Oddly enough, Cummer's involvement in materials ...
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  • December 15, 2008

    Creating the Future of Mobile Computing

    Like most users, Romit Roy Choudhury enjoys the freedom, information, and options his iPhone and other devices provide, but for him these instruments serve a more important role as research tools that help him envision future innovations in mobile computing. Roy Choudhury's academic life is dedicated to making those visions reality, and it's difficult to discuss his research with him without feeling like you're getting a privileged glimpse of the future. Roy Choudhury, who was courted ...
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  • December 12, 2008

    A New Paradigm in Electrical Sensing

    When a snake is cut in half, it dies. This illustrates how electrical devices can respond to damage. Since they are at their core closed circuits, devices will fail whenever the circuit is interrupted. However, if these devices could be more like earthworms, intriguing new possibilities arise. Unlike their reptilian counterpart, one functioning worm can become two functioning worms when cut in half. The worm-snake illustration helps explain the recent innovation by a Duke engineering alumnus that ...
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  • December 10, 2008

    Searching for Genes, Photo Files, and Landmines -- In Haystacks

    Lawrence Carin's graduate training was in electromagnetics and wave analysis-- a fitting choice for someone who remembers trying to assemble and plug in electronic contraptions as a five year old and who grew up tinkering with radios and motors. Overall, his life was fairly standard preparation for the electronic and computer engineering field, but where his work has led is anything but typical. Carin's graduate work was focused on traditional physics in the context of improving ...
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  • December 4, 2008

    Collaboration of Soloists Makes the Best Science

    For the success of a major research university, which is better: large, well-funded laboratory empires with many investigators working toward the same end, or the individual scientist toiling alone in his own laboratory or at his own desk? According to a novel theory by a Duke University engineer, the optimum situation appears to be a balance between the "many" and the "one." Institutions benefit the most from the co-existence of large groups that self-organize naturally and ...
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  • November 10, 2008

    Duke Engineering Contest Connects U.S. Students with National Problems

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering challenges college students in the U.S. to create a video and an essay in response to this question: Which of the 14 grand challenges identified by the National Academy of Engineering would you choose to address, and how would you do it? The National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org) has identified 14 critical barriers to a sustainable way of life. They represent problems that will require ...
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  • October 15, 2008

    Adrienne Stiff-Roberts: Putting Artificial Atoms to Use

    Adrienne Stiff-Roberts says she didn't do so well as an undergraduate physics student tackling quantum mechanics. "It's one of those topics where, the first time you see it, it's really mind blowing," she says. And yet, today her entire research program is focused on putting the wonders of quantum mechanics to good use. The shift from struggling to wrap her mind around quantum mechanics, a topic that stressed even Albert Einstein, to embracing it as a ...
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  • October 15, 2008

    Gary Ybarra: Electrifying a New Generation of Engineers

    Like many of his colleagues at Pratt, Gary Ybarra's interest in engineering began early on. He loved to take apart all manner of electronic devices from radios to televisions and was fascinated by the way that small components could be assembled together to perform such useful--or at least entertaining--functions. In his more than two decades as a professional engineer, Ybarra has continued to nurture that passion. His research has spanned a wide range of topics from ...
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  • October 15, 2008

    David Smith: Creating New Materials that Go Beyond Nature

    In 1967, Russian scientist Victor Veselago published theoretical research on a bizarre type of material that, while possible according to the known laws of physics, didn't exist anywhere on the planet as far as anyone could tell. Veselago was describing materials with a negative refraction, which, relative to the positive refraction all known materials had, would have dramatic impacts on electromagnetic radiation--from microwaves to visible light--leading to a variety of alien properties. Some 30 years ...
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  • October 14, 2008

    Matt Reynolds - Bridging the gaps between the physical and digital worlds

    Who is Matt Reynolds? Academically, Matt Reynolds was born and raised at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's famed Media Lab, but the roots of his engineering interests go back much further. By the age of 10, he was already building and studying electronic circuits using an oscilloscope--a gift from his father who encouraged him to learn about math and science. "That early interest in science and engineering has stayed with me for a long time now," ...
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  • September 17, 2008

    Duke to Lead New NSF, EPA Funded Center to Study the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology

    DURHAM, NC--The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have awarded $14.4 million to create the Center for Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT) to explore the potential ecological hazards of nanoparticles. Nanoparticles are as much as a million times smaller than the head of a pin, and have unusual properties compared with larger objects made from the same material. These unusual properties make nanomaterials attractive for use in everything from computer hard-drives to ...
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  • September 9, 2008

    Dowell Guggenheim Medalist for 2008

    Earl Dowell's set is now complete. That is, he just received the last major aerospace engineering award not already on his crowded mantle. This summer, the dean emeritus of the Pratt School of Engineering and William Holland Hall professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, received the 2008 Daniel Guggenheim Medal Award. The award is bestowed jointly by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the American Society of Mechanical Engineering, the American Helicopter Society ...
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  • September 9, 2008

    Scientists form alliance to develop nanotoxicology protocols

    ZURICH, Switzerland A team of materials scientists and toxicologists announced the formation of a new international research alliance to establish protocols for reproducible toxicological testing of nanomaterials in both cultured cells and animals. Pratt's Mark Wiesner, James L. Meriam Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering is part of this research effort. The International Alliance for NanoEHS Harmonization (IANH) was unveiled Sept. 9 at Nanotox 2008, one of the world's largest biennial nanotoxicological research meetings. "When this ...
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  • August 28, 2008

    Tiny 3-D Ultrasound Probe Guides Catheter Procedures

    DURHAM, N.C. An ultrasound probe small enough to ride along at the tip of a catheter can provide physicians with clearer real-time images of soft tissue without the risks associated with conventional x-ray catheter guidance.Duke University biomedical engineers designed and fabricated the novel ultrasound probe which is powerful enough to provide detailed, 3-D images. The new device works like an insect's compound eye, blending images from 108 miniature transducers working together. Catheter-based procedures involve ...
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  • August 28, 2008

    Tiny 3-D Ultrasound Probe Guides Catheter Procedures

    DURHAM, N.C. An ultrasound probe small enough to ride along at the tip of a catheter can provide physicians with clearer real-time images of soft tissue without the risks associated with conventional x-ray catheter guidance.Duke University biomedical engineers designed and fabricated the novel ultrasound probe which is powerful enough to provide detailed, 3-D images. The new device works like an insect's compound eye, blending images from 108 miniature transducers working together. Catheter-based procedures involve ...
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  • August 21, 2008

    Quantum: The Next Generation in Computing

    While computers are getting progressively smaller and more powerful, the underlying principles encoding information in long strings of ones and zeroes have not changed markedly in 50 years.But that could soon change. Scientists at Duke University and elsewhere are making advances in a new type of computing that may have seemed purely theoretical, but could now be possible within our lifetimes. Literally, this new generation of computers will be a quantum leap ...
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  • August 14, 2008

    Trees, Forests and the Eiffel Tower Reveal Theory of Design in Nature

    DURHAM, N.C. - What do a tree and the Eiffel Tower have in common?According to a Duke University engineer, both are optimized for flow. In the case of trees, the flow is of water from the ground throughout the trunk, branches and leaves, and into the air. The Eiffel Tower's flow carries stresses throughout the structure without collapsing under its own weight or being downed by the wind. For most engineers, the laws governing fluid and ...
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  • July 31, 2008

    Microbe Diet Key To Carbon Dioxide Release

    DURHAM, N.C. - As microbes in the soil break down fallen plant matter, a diet "balanced" in nutrients appears to help control soil fertility and the normal release of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When plants drop their leaves, stems and twigs, this organic matter slowly becomes part of the soil as a result of decomposition, which is facilitated by bacteria and other microbes. This process adds plant nutrients to the soil ...
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  • July 17, 2008

    Tree Branching Key To Efficient Flow In Nature And Novel Materials

    DURHAM, N.C. Nature, in the simple form of a tree canopy, appears to provide keen insights into the best way to design complex systems to move substances from one place to another, an essential ingredient in the development of novel "smart" materials. Duke University engineers believe that an image of two tree canopies touching top-to-top can guide their efforts to most efficiently control the flow of liquids in new materials, including the next generation ...
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  • June 30, 2008

    Gold, DNA combination may lead to 'nano' sensor

    DURHAM, N.C. The ability to use genetic material to assemble nanoscopic particles of gold could be an important step toward creating tiny "spies" that will be able to infiltrate individual cells and report back in real time on the cell's inner workings.A team of Duke University materials engineers and chemists has developed tiny gold nanostructures that can create signals from subtle changes in light reflecting off their nanoscale surfaces. The sub-cellular size of ...
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  • June 26, 2008

    Laursen Named Chair of Mechanical Engineering Department

    Professor Tod Laursen has been named chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Dean Robert Clark and Dean designee Tom Katsouleas announced on June 26. He succeeds professor Franklin H. Cocks, who served as interim chair during the 2007/2008 academic year. "Tod is well known and respected for his scholarship, leadership, judgment and academic values. He has ambitious goals for MEMS and we expect him to be a transformative Chair," said Katsouleas. Laursen received ...
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  • June 19, 2008

    Smart Home Gets Top Environmental Building Score

    Residence hall/laboratory receives state's first platinum LEED rating DURHAM, NC -- The Home Depot Smart Home at Duke University, a 10-person student residence hall for green living and learning, has achieved a top-level platinum standard for its design from the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system. The building becomes the first in North Carolina to achieve that standard. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The 6,000-square foot-residence, designed by students and advisers, earned 59 ...
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  • June 19, 2008

    Experimental Phone Network Uses Virtual Sticky Notes

    By Richard Merritt The rapid convergence of social networks, mobile phones and global positioning technology has given Duke University engineers the ability to create something they call "virtual sticky notes," site-specific messages that people can leave for others to pick up on their mobile phones. "Every mobile phone can act as a telescope lens providing real-time information about its environment to any of the 3 billion mobile phones worldwide," said Romit Roy Choudhury, an assistant professor of ...
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  • June 3, 2008

    Possible New Approach To Purifying Drinking Water

    DURHAM, N.C. A genetic tool used by medical researchers may also be used in a novel approach to remove harmful microbes and viruses from drinking water.In a series of proof-of-concept experiments, Duke University engineers demonstrated that short strands of genetic material could successfully target a matching portion of a gene in a common fungus found in water and make it stop working. If this new approach can be perfected, the researchers believe that ...
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  • May 20, 2008

    Engineering the Heart - Damaged Heart Muscle Could Use Stem Cell Patch

    Five Question Interview with Nenad Bursac Nenad Bursac is an assistant professor in biomedical engineering who works with stem cells, tissue engineering and biomaterials to find a way to patch and repair the damage created by a heart attack. Q - How did you get from electrical engineering to heart muscles? I was always fascinated by the heart as an extremely complex and powerful, and yet delicate, organ. The heart is both an electrical and mechanical ...
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  • May 20, 2008

    Tiny Trojan Horse Targets Tumors - How to Build a Heat-Sensitive Liposome

    Liposomes are tiny capsules made of lipids, the same fatty molecules that make up the membrane of every cell in the body. These synthetic spheres naturally tend to form into hollow capsules around a drop of watery solution. Researchers first fabricated liposomes in 1965 but needed several decades to give them protection against attack by the body's immune system. Today, they're coated in polyethylene glycol, which provides several hours of protection in the bloodstream. David Needham's years ...
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  • April 24, 2008

    New 3-D Ultrasound Could Improve Stroke Diagnosis, Care

    DURHAM, N.C. Using 3-D ultrasound technology they designed, Duke University bioengineers can compensate for the thickness and unevenness of the skull to see in real-time the arteries within the brain that most often clog up and cause strokes. The researchers believe that these advances will ultimately improve the treatment of stroke patients, whether by giving emergency medical technicians (EMT) the ability to quickly scan the heads of potential stroke victims while in the ambulance ...
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  • April 21, 2008

    Clare Boothe Luce Fellows Two Years Later

    Two years after receiving prestigious fellowships designed to support women scientists, three Pratt graduate students are well into their research with such diverse projects as brain-computer interfaces, nanoparticle exposures and a new method for breast cancer screening. In 2006, Katie Hedlund, Christine Robichaud and Christina Shafer were named Clare Boothe Luce Fellows. The fellowship program is the largest such private program for women studying science, mathematics or engineering. More than 1,500 women scientists have received support ...
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  • April 17, 2008

    Joseph Izatt Elected SPIE Fellow

    SPIE, the international society for the science and application of light, has elected Duke biomedical engineering professor Joseph Izatt a fellow of the society. This year SPIE chose only 72 new fellows worldwide. Fellows are members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics, and imaging. They are honored for their technical achievement, for their service to the general optics community, and to SPIE in particular. More than ...
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  • April 15, 2008

    Novel Living System Recreates Predator-Prey Interaction

    DURHAM, N.C. The hunter-versus-hunted phenomenon exemplified by a pack of lionesses chasing down a lonely gazelle has been recreated in a Petri dish with lowly bacteria.   Working with colleagues at Caltech, Stanford and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Duke University bioengineer has developed a living system using genetically altered bacteria that he believes can provide new insights into how the population levels of prey influence the levels of predators, and vice-versa. The Duke experiment ...
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  • April 7, 2008

    Meet the New Faculty: Matt Reynolds

    Making home technology to meet needs By Marla Vacek Broadfoot Durham, NC -- Talk to Matt Reynolds about his work and chances are he'll quote his favorite piece of trivia exemplifying the value of technology in our lives. Here it is: By the year 2005, more transistors -- tiny electrical gadgets found in everything from toasters to computers - had been created by human hands than grains of rice had been farmed. "Clearly, we already live among ...
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  • March 25, 2008

    New Faculty Profile: Brian Mann

    Not long ago, while taking a walk and bemoaning the fact his cell phone kept dying, Brian Mann had an inspiration. "I know I walk enough to recharge my cell phone," he thought. "Now I just need to find a way to turn that motion into energy." The idea of exploring everyday activities or natural phenomena as novel sources of energy, known as energy harvesting, is the newest research interest for Mann, who joined the faculty ...
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  • March 19, 2008

    Findings Could Improve Fuel Cell Efficiency

    DURHAM, N.C. - A new type of membrane based on tiny iron particles appears to address one of the major limitations exhibited by current power-generating fuel cell technology. While there are many types of fuel cells, in general they generate electricity as the result of chemical reactions between an external fuel -- most commonly hydrogen -- and an agent that reacts with it. The membrane that separates the two parts of the cell and facilitates ...
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  • March 18, 2008

    Needham's Liposomes Headed to Liver Cancer Trials Via Celsion Corporation

    A cancer treatment technology developed by Duke materials engineer David Needham and radiation oncologist Mark Dewhirst has started Phase III human clinical trials in both Hong Kong and the United States. The technology is a heat-sensitive engineered capsule called a liposome containing the frequently-used chemotherapy drug doxorubicin. The invention was prompted when Dewhirst asked Needham in the early 1990s for something that releases a drug when heated to just above body temperature. Having worked on ...
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  • March 17, 2008

    Duke optical spinoff company wins Frost & Sullivan North America Award for Excellence in Research

    Bioptigen, a spinoff company co-founded by Duke biomedical engineer Joseph Izatt, has won the Frost & Sullivan 2007 North American Optical Coherence Tomography Excellence in Research Award. Bioptigen was singled out for its work in spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) for ophthalmology. "This recognition is validation of our vision for the current and future potential of SD-OCT," said Izatt, professor of biomedical engineering and opthamology, and Chief Technology Officer at Bioptigen. "Our emphasis looking forward is ...
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  • March 17, 2008

    Duke optical spinoff company wins Frost & Sullivan North America Award for Excellence in Research

    Bioptigen, a spinoff company co-founded by Duke biomedical engineer Joseph Izatt, has won the Frost & Sullivan 2007 North American Optical Coherence Tomography Excellence in Research Award. Bioptigen was singled out for its work in spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) for ophthalmology. "This recognition is validation of our vision for the current and future potential of SD-OCT," said Izatt, professor of biomedical engineering and opthamology, and Chief Technology Officer at Bioptigen. "Our emphasis looking forward is ...
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  • March 17, 2008

    Five Questions About Rainfall and Drought for Ana Barros

    by Ana P. Barros is a professor of environmental engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering who studies the water cycle and how land, air and water interact. It's complicated: Rainfall is affected by global patterns, and landforms. Does being east of the mountains make the drought worse in North Carolina? Would we get more rain if they weren't in the way? Locations downslope and downwind of mountains with regard to regionally predominant storm tracks tend to ...
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  • February 27, 2008

    Engineer Roy Choudhury wins NSF Early Career Award for "Spotlight" Wireless Network Development

    DURHAM, N.C. Assistant Professor Romit Roy Choudhury has received a 5-year, $437,000 National Science Foundation Early CAREER award. The distinction recognizes and supports the early career development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become academic leaders, according to the NSF.   Roy Choudhury came to Duke in 2006 after completing a doctorate in computer science at the University of Illinois. While at Illinois, he was among the first researchers to investigate the ...
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  • February 12, 2008

    Physics Theory Explains Why University Rankings Resist Change

    DURHAM, N.C. -- A Duke University researcher says that his physics theory, which has been applied to everything from global climate to traffic patterns, can also explain another trend: why university rankings tend not to change very much from year to year. Like branching river channels across the earth's surface, universities are part of a relatively rigid network that is predictable based on "constructal theory," which describes the shapes of flows in nature, argues Adrian ...
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  • January 30, 2008

    Sebastian Liska, Pratt Fellow, Envisions Planes on Folded Wings

    Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow Sebastian Liska imagines a day when airplane wings might fold themselves up during flight, not unlike the flexible wings of a bird. That quality would give planes the adaptability to complete complicated, multitask missions. "You might enhance fuel efficiency with extended wings and increase maneuverability with shorter wings," Liska said. "As you change configurations, the plane would become more stable and efficient for particular conditions." Liska is working in the laboratory of William ...
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  • January 22, 2008

    Pratt Fellow Aims for Quieter Flying Time

    As a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow, Chelsea He is working on a project designed to deliver more peace and quiet to people traveling by air in the future. She is examining the structural acoustics of airplanes and experimenting with materials that might dampen the racket that results from the vibration of the aircraft, the engine and the flow of air over planes. "I've always been interested in aerospace and aerodynamics and finding a way to achieve ...
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  • January 22, 2008

    Pratt Fellow Amoozegar Aims for Better Detection of Early Cancer

    Cyrus Amoozegar, a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow in the laboratory of Biomedical Engineering Professor Adam Wax, is working to improve a new, light-based method of early cancer detection. The technology, known as "angle-resolved low coherence interferometry" (a/LCI), can distinguish between cancer and non-cancer by measuring features within the cells that cover the outer surfaces of organs, where most cancers get their start. "It's superior because it is completely non-invasive," Amoozegar said. "Now, doctors have to take ...
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  • January 22, 2008

    Pratt Fellow Crabtree Seeks Understanding of Flaws in 'Smart Gels'

    Liza Crabtree, a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow and civil and environmental engineering major, is working to understand the flaws that can develop in so-called stimulus-responsive hydrogels. These 'smart gels,' which look essentially like Jello, can be made to undergo dramatic transformation in response to changes in their surroundings, including pH and temperature. Thanks to those unique abilities, hydrogels are now poised to become integral mechanical components and sensors in the increasingly tiny devices of the ...
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  • January 22, 2008

    Pratt Fellow Yamanaka Aims for Gene Therapy in a Pill and Career in Global Health

    Yvonne Yamanaka, a biomedical engineering major and Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow, is developing a method for incorporating the genes encoding insulin into cells of the intestine, a promising new method for the treatment of diabetes. Unlike earlier approaches to gene therapy, which rely on viruses to insert new genes into cells, her research in the laboratory of Biomedical Engineering Professor Kam Leong aims to make gene therapies as easy as popping a pill. Such oral ...
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  • January 13, 2008

    Rachel Brady: New Tools for Understanding

    She's made a career out of visualizing data. "My passion is scientific visualization," says Rachael Brady, "not just the visual rendering of it but everything that leads up to it, starting with the raw data. What I'm really interested in is how technology visualization in particular can help people understand their data." Brady pursues that passion inside one of the most spectacular pieces of technology on the Duke campus, a cube 3 meters ...
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  • January 9, 2008

    'Invisibility Cloaks' Could Break Sound Barriers

    Contrary to earlier predictions, Duke University engineers have found that a three-dimensional sound cloak is possible, at least in theory. Such an acoustic veil would do for sound what the "invisibility cloak" previously demonstrated by the research team does for microwaves--allowing sound waves to travel seamlessly around it and emerge on the other side without distortion. "We've devised a recipe for an acoustic material that would essentially open up a hole in space and make something inside ...
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  • January 7, 2008

    High-Energy Ultrasound Sharpens View of Liver Tumors

    A high-energy form of ultrasound imaging developed by researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering produces pictures of liver tumors that are better than those made with traditional ultrasound, according to results of a clinical study. The study suggests that the imaging method known as Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) ultrasound might offer a new tool for screening patients at increased risk for liver cancers, according to the researchers. They say it might also ...
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  • November 26, 2007

    Tumor Assessment Device Wins Seed Funding from The Carolinas Photonics Consortium

    The Carolinas Photonics Consortium (CPC) has selected biomedical engineering postdoctoral researcher Quincy Brown of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering to receive $10,000 in seed funding for the development of a device aimed at dramatically decreasing the number of repeat surgeries for women with breast cancer. "In the U.S., more than 145,000 women with breast cancer have to undergo two or more invasive surgeries to completely remove their cancer," Brown said. "Those second surgeries impose a ...
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  • November 21, 2007

    Our World of Water -- Crisis and Confusion

    DURHAM, NC -- Taken for granted by some, stolen by others, water is one of the world's most valuable commodities. In some places, a gallon of water is worth more than a gallon of petroleum, according to Miguel Medina, a specialist in hydrology and water resources at Duke's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "More than 2.4 billion people in the world do not have access to sanitation, more than 1.2 billion don't have access to ...
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  • November 20, 2007

    Capturing the Inner Workings of Early Stage Cancer in 3-D

    Biomedical engineers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have captured three-dimensional images revealing microscopic changes to the inner workings of cells that occur at the earliest stages of cancer, suggesting a possible new way of disease detection. Their findings in animals also suggest that so-called multi-photon fluorescence microscopy a technique that had generally been limited to the basic science laboratory might also find use in the clinic. "We were able to ...
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  • November 9, 2007

    Duke to Establish New Center for Engineering, Energy and the Environment

    A gift of $7.85 million by a Duke alumnus and his wife will create a center to educate students to meet the world's energy needs while also improving its environment, university President Richard H. Brodhead announced Nov. 9. The Gendell Center for Engineering, Energy and the Environment is being established by Duke's Pratt School of Engineering in collaboration with the university's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. The center is being named for Jeffrey and ...
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  • November 6, 2007

    Bejan and Lorente Win First Hartnett Award for 'Smart' Materials Inspired by Constructal Theory

    Adrian Bejan, J.A. Jones professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, and Sylvie Lorente, professor of civil engineering at the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Toulouse, France, will receive the James P. Hartnett Award at the ASME International Congress of Mechanical Engineering and Exposition in Seattle on Nov. 13. The Hartnett Award is conferred by the International Center of Heat and Mass Transfer (ICHMT) to the best paper presented at a ...
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  • October 30, 2007

    New Magnetic Separation Technique Might Detect Multiple Pathogens at Once

    Watch a video of 3-micron beads as they are magnetically separated from 1-micron beads using a new technique developed by researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Purdue University. A magnetic separation technique developed by researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Purdue University makes it relatively simple to sort through beads hundreds of times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. The method could lead ...
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  • October 3, 2007

    Ashutosh Chilkoti Named Director of Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems

    Professor Ashutosh Chilkoti has been appointed director of the Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Materials Systems (CBIMMS), Pratt Dean Robert Clark announced on Oct. 2. CBIMMS is an interdisciplinary Duke center focused on bio-nano-manufacturing, biointerface science and nanomechanics, using designs found in nature as inspiration for engineering advances. In his capacity as center director, Chilkoti will also lead Pratt's strategic research initiative in materials. "As associate director of CBIMMS, Chilkoti provided extensive leadership on multi-investigator proposals ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Graduate Student Bogdan Popa Puts Exotic Metamaterials to Action

    Bogdan Popa with the metamaterial he created in Professor Steven Cummer's laboratory. When communism fell in Romania 20 years ago, it was as if the people had moved from jail to a jungle, according to Bogdan Popa, a Romanian citizen and recent graduate of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. Afterwards, he said the biggest change was that people "could leave the country and visit other countries. They had freedom to move, and you could say ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Graduate Student Bogdan Popa Puts Exotic Metamaterials to Action

    Bogdan Popa with the metamaterial he created in Professor Steven Cummer's laboratory. When communism fell in Romania 20 years ago, it was as if the people had moved from jail to a jungle, according to Bogdan Popa, a Romanian citizen and recent graduate of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. Afterwards, he said the biggest change was that people "could leave the country and visit other countries. They had freedom to move, and you could say ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Pratt Pair Wins YouTube Contest

    Watch Laura Moore and Lisa Richard's video "Shedding Light on Breast Cancer," which highlights their research done as Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellows. Two seniors in the Pratt School of Engineering have won the Duke University prize in a national YouTube video competition. Laura Moore (BME '08) and Lisa Richards (BME '08) produced a three-minute film about a research project that is using specially filtered light to improve breast cancer detection and measurement. Both students have been working ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Pratt Pair Wins YouTube Contest

    Watch Laura Moore and Lisa Richard's video "Shedding Light on Breast Cancer," which highlights their research done as Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellows. Two seniors in the Pratt School of Engineering have won the Duke University prize in a national YouTube video competition. Laura Moore (BME '08) and Lisa Richards (BME '08) produced a three-minute film about a research project that is using specially filtered light to improve breast cancer detection and measurement. Both students have been working ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Annual Fitzpatrick Meeting to Highlight 'Science and Technology for a Purpose'

    Fitzpatrick Institute Director Tuan Vo-Dinh The seventh annual meeting of Duke's Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics, which will be held at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering on Oct. 11 and 12, will highlight "Photonics in the Translational Era: Science and Technology for a Purpose." Photonics is the science and technology of light and its interaction with materials. "The main purpose of the symposium is to bring together scientists, engineers and practitioners from multiple disciplines and provide a forum ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    Annual Fitzpatrick Meeting to Highlight 'Science and Technology for a Purpose'

    Fitzpatrick Institute Director Tuan Vo-Dinh The seventh annual meeting of Duke's Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics, which will be held at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering on Oct. 11 and 12, will highlight "Photonics in the Translational Era: Science and Technology for a Purpose." Photonics is the science and technology of light and its interaction with materials. "The main purpose of the symposium is to bring together scientists, engineers and practitioners from multiple disciplines and provide a forum ...
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  • October 1, 2007

    David Fitzpatrick Named to Lead Neuroscience Institute at Duke

    David Fitzpatrick, a professor of neurobiology at Duke University, has been named the first director of the new interdisciplinary Institute for Brain, Mind, Genes, and Behavior, Provost Peter Lange announced Monday. The institute, an outgrowth of the university's latest strategic plan, is being created "to build on our existing strengths in a variety of disciplines that are critical for understanding brain function," Fitzpatrick explained. "I'm looking forward to working together with the faculty and administration ...
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  • September 27, 2007

    Using Catalysts to Stamp Nanopatterns without Ink

    Using enzymes from E. coli bacteria, Duke University chemists and engineers have introduced a hundred-fold improvement in the precision of features imprinted to create microdevices such as labs-on-a-chip. Their inkless microcontact printing technique can imprint details measuring close to 1 nanometer, or billionths of a meter, the Duke team reported in the Sept. 24, 2007 issue of the Journal of Organic Chemistry. "This has a lot of potential, because we don't have the resolution issue," said ...
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  • September 12, 2007

    Students Take Part in Climate-Decoding Mission

    Summer 2007 -- After taking CEE Professor Ana Barros' Focus program course in his freshman year, William Patrick took the initiative to ask if Barros might have anything he could do for the summer. He soon found himself as one of the only undergraduates participating in a massive, multi-aircraft mission aimed at decoding the climate. "It was interesting to see research actually taking place and to be a part of a team," Patrick said. "It helped ...
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  • August 30, 2007

    New Insights into Common Knee Injuries

    The sort of swelling that occurs when a joint is damaged by injury or degeneration is normally essential to the healing process, but when it comes to the knee, that inflammation can actually interfere with healing. These findings in experiments with pigs may lead to treatments for injuries or osteoarthritis in the knee, according to Duke University orthopedic researchers. There are drugs that can block the action of these immune system proteins that trigger joint inflammation. The ...
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  • August 21, 2007

    Winner of Two Early Career Awards Devises Recipes for Tomorrow's Materials

    Stefano Curtarolo, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, is developing computational tools designed to predict the recipes for tomorrow's advanced materials. He aims to identify the best new materials for just about any high-tech job, from the automotive, aerospace or marine industries to nanotechnology and future sources of energy. For his efforts, Curtarolo has won a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from The National Science ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Molecular "Fishing"

    Technologies that permit fast chemical measurement have myriad applications in medicine, the environment and food safety monitoring. However, methods that rely on heat or changes in optical properties often require long sampling times and equipment not suitable for use in the field. Additionally, optical methods can only be used when the testing solution is clear, precluding their use on blood and any other opaque solution. Did you know? To detect the interactions between individual molecules, atomic ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Air Quality

    Aerosol particles in the air originating from a number of sources, including motor vehicles, industrial processes and forest fires, reduce air quality and can lead to asthma and cardiovascular problems, among other illnesses. The standard method for keeping tabs on the air-polluting particles relies on pumping air through filters, which are then submitted for costly and time-consuming chemical extraction and analysis. Did you know? As the No.1 source of air pollution in the U.S., transportation yields ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    More Runoff - But Why?

    Even though humans are using more water than ever, continental water runoff steadily increased in the 20th Century. Competing scientific explanations abound. Some argue that global warming is causing more rainfall than the soil can absorb. Others contend runoff is a result of less overall transpiration by plants due to global change. Environmental engineering Associate Professor Amilcare Porporato, a specialist in ecohydrology, wants to determine whether evapotranspiration has decreased and why. Using the Southeastern region of ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Nothing but Sand

    Human encroachment, agriculture, livestock grazing and climate changes have dramatically increased the conversion of fragile grasslands to deserts worldwide. A major impact of desertification is loss of biodiversity and decreased capacity to produce crops. Ironically, droughts are common in these arid and semi arid lands and well-managed lands can recover if damage during droughts can be minimized. Did you know? Desertification has its greatest impact in Africa where two thirds of the continent is desert or ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Rainfall to Faucet

    Almost 25 percent of the world's population lives in mountainous regions, and over 60 percent relies on mountains for freshwater needs ranging from drinking water to food production, ecosystem services, and industrial use. Most of the world's fertile agricultural lands lie at the foothills and in the interior valleys of mountain ranges. Did you know? The watersheds of the Southern Appalachian Mountains provide drinking water for 10 million people. The highest precipitation amounts registered anywhere in ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Skimming the Trees

    Debate over global warming is a daily news headline, but today's climate models are hampered by limited field observation data. Duke environmental engineering Professor Roni Avissar was the first to realize the potential of helicopters in climate research by overcoming a misconception that the aerodynamics of helicopters in flight would unavoidably interfere with the climate sensors' ability to make accurate measurements. Did you know? Global Climate Models are computer-driven models for weather forecasting, understanding climate and ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Breast Cancer Imaging

    X-ray mammography plays a critical role in detecting breast cancers early--up to two years before a patient or physician might feel a suspicious lump. Yet, the contrast between cancer and non-cancer on an X-ray is limited to a few percent, making it impossible to determine without a biopsy whether lesions picked up by this method reflect true malignancies or benign cysts. Did you know? By the ninth mammogram, the odds of getting a false alarm can ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Understanding Climate

    The amount and type of vegetation found at the Earth's surface--be it forests or agricultural fields--has a significant impact on the interaction between the land and atmosphere, including the absorption of solar energy and the evaporation of water. That interaction influences cloud cover and the exchange of carbon dioxide, among other factors, ultimately driving the climate system. Yet, climate models used to forecast global climate and local weather patterns contain little detail about land cover. ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    When Fear Returns

    Psychological counseling helps people overcome debilitating anxiety and painful memories of traumatic events in their lives giving them the chance to conquer their fears and live normal lives. But for some, the effects of therapy don't 'stick'--patients feel fine for long periods of time only to have a relapse where fears return in full force, a phenomenon researchers call fear renewal. Did you know? To create the sound effects of spiders being stepped on or squashed ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    See More, Know More

    For patients, minimally invasive surgery done through tiny "keyhole" incisions generally means less trauma to the body, less blood loss, smaller surgical scars and less need for pain medication. Surgeons now use optical endoscopes thin tubes with a tiny video camera--or two-dimensional ultrasound to navigate the surgeries. Did you know? Professors Stephen Smith and Olaf Von Ramm, also of the Pratt School, developed the first 3D ultrasound scanner in 1987 for imaging the heart from outside ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Nocturnal Gazing

    High quality night vision and infrared cameras are critical for a variety of tasks ranging from security in banks and museums to observing nocturnal animals to military troop safety. In the past, improving the quality of photographs meant using ever larger camera lenses. However, in these and other applications it is important for cameras to be as small as possible. Did you know? The digital camera market is growing at 50% per year, and there are ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Feel the Beat

    In addition to displaying cardiac anatomy, various medical imaging techniques including PET, CT, MRI and echocardiography provide information related to heart function. However, the potential complications with the use of contrast agents as well as the cost of these imaging methods are limiting factors for their widespread clinical application, and none of these methods can "see" the heart as it stiffens and softens with each beat. Did you know? The average heartbeat is 72 times per minute. ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    DNA, a la carte

    In 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first human vaccine to offer protection against the H5N1 influenza virus, commonly known as avian or bird flu. Yet, in the event that a viral strain began spreading from human to human, the vaccine is expected to provide only limited protection until a tailored vaccine could be developed and produced. Did you know? The freedom to synthesize the precise DNA sequences you want would change the way ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Reigning in HIV/AIDS

    An estimated 12,000 people contract the AIDS virus each day, including a disproportionate number of women. Microbicides might help protect at-risk women by serving as "molecular condoms"--physical barriers or filters with HIV-neutralizing ingredients that slow viral passage from semen into body tissues. Human Need In many cases, women lack the control needed to protect themselves against the virus. Microbicide development is a response to the demonstrated need for new female-controlled methods for HIV prophylaxis. David Katz A team ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Is it Malaria?

    The World Health Organization estimates that each year 300 million to 500 million cases of malaria occur and more than one million people die of malaria. A mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite, malaria causes fever, chills, and flu-like illness. While there is currently no malaria vaccine approved for human use, the disease can be successfully treated if caught early. But some strains, such as the falciparum malaria strain, are particularly deadly. Did you know? Malaria ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Warm Targets

    Anti-cancer drugs are hazardous to cancers, but they are only slightly less so to healthy tissue. For example, the drug doxorubicin may efficiently jam the genetic machinery of rapidly dividing cancer cells, but it is also highly toxic to heart tissue. Such cardiac toxicity limits how much of the drug can be administered to patients. Benefit "The unprecedented rapid release of such large amounts of drug directly into the cancers' blood vessels--triggered only by mild focused heating--seems ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Drug Depot

    Osteoarthritis--a degenerative joint disease that affects 21 million people in the U.S. and is the nation's leading cause of disability--had been attributed primarily to the gradual wear and tear of joint surfaces. More recently, scientists have discovered that inflammation sparked by the immune system also plays an important role in the worsening of the disease. However, trials of a drug aimed at blocking that joint inflammation have had limited success, primarily because the medication clears ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Damage Control

    Nearly half of all people with cancer are treated with radiation therapy, either alone or in combination with other treatments. The goal of radiation therapy is to damage as many cancer cells as possible while limiting harm to nearby healthy tissue. Although radiation damages both cancer cells and normal cells, most normal cells can recover from the effects of radiation. Did you know? Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the U.S. In ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Special Delivery

    Gene therapy is a promising approach for treating many genetic disorders, particularly those such as hemophilia and some metabolic diseases, in which a missing or dysfunctional gene fails to provide a protein required for normal bodily functions. However, the therapeutic potential of gene therapy has been limited by the lack of safe and efficient delivery systems. Did you know? About one in every 5,000 males has hemophilia A, in which a deficiency for a single blood clotting ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Designing for Sound

    Whether the goal is to hear a pin drop in a concert hall, to reduce the drone of airplane engines, or to improve sound clarity in lecture halls, designing physical spaces with superior sound quality is a computational challenge. Duke engineers are developing new engineering tools to improve our acoustic environment. Did you know? The quality and volume of sound in a room can bring pleasure or fatigue to the listener. Careful consideration of sound quality in ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Ultrasound Solution

    Many major diseases of the liver cause the organ to stiffen over time due to scarring, a condition known as fibrosis. Ultimately, such disorders--including hepatitis and fatty liver disease--can lead to cirrhosis, in which scarred tissue becomes an obstacle to blood flow and liver function. Today, doctors remove liver tissue through biopsy procedures to determine how far a patient's disease has progressed. Did you know? Cirrhosis is the 12th leading cause of death by disease, killing about ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Hearing the Subtleties

    Cochlear implants are electronic devices designed to produce useful hearing sensations for people with severe to profound hearing loss. An implant combines an externally worn microphone, sound processor and transmitter system with a receiver under the skin and an electrode array inside the inner ear called the cochlea. Did you know? Nearly 10 percent of people in the U.S. have some degree of hearing loss. Two to three out of ever 1,000 children in the U.S. are ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Precise Reading

    Noise and vibration can generate inaccurate readings in precision systems such as planetarium astronomy equipment, parabolic antennas and laser based guidance systems that rely on precise pointing to receive or transmit signals. The sources of this problem, commonly called jitter, can range from motors used to position the pointing system to ambient acoustic sources such as simple heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems or in some cases, noise due to automobiles and aircraft. Did you know? The Hubble ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Tumor Therapy

    Lithotripsy, the shock wave therapy currently used to pulverize kidney stones, is stimulating new thinking about how to non-invasively combat tumors. What's more, sound waves may also lessen the likelihood that tumor cells will metastasize--spreading to other parts of the body. Did you know? High Intensity Focused Ultrasound is currently being used in clinical trials in the United States for FDA approval of cancer therapy. Mechanical engineering Associate Professor Pei Zhong, a world leader in lithotripsy, is working ...
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  • August 15, 2007

    Invisibility Cloak

    The concept of invisibility has long been relegated to the realm of science fiction, from H.G. Wells' Invisible Man to Harry Potter, but those days are gone. Last year, David R. Smith, Augustine Scholar and professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his colleagues reported a blueprint for a device that would make invisibility possible, at least at microwave frequencies. Months later, the first such invisibility cloak, built from artificial composite materials called metamaterials, was ...
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  • August 7, 2007

    Marszalek Wins NSF Grant to Unravel DNA, Sugars

    Piotr Marszalek, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, has received a grant award from the National Science Foundation for his work in characterizing the fundamental mechanics of sugars and nucleic acids--the building blocks of complex carbohydrates, DNA and RNA--at the molecular level. The grant will provide $510,000 over the next three years. Collaborators on the research will include co-principal investigator Weitao Yang, in Duke's chemistry department, and Rob Clark, a professor of mechanical ...
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  • August 6, 2007

    High-Intensity Ultrasound May Launch an Attack on Cancer, Wherever it Lurks

    An intense form of ultrasound that shakes a tumor until its cells start to leak can trigger an "alarm" that enlists immune defenses against the cancerous invasion, according to a study led by researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. The new findings from animal experiments suggest that once activated by the ultrasound, the immune system might even seek and destroy cancer cells, including those that have spread through the bloodstream to lurk in other ...
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  • August 1, 2007

    Automated Technique Paves Way for Nanotechnology's Industrial Revolution

    In an assist in the quest for ever smaller electronic devices, Duke University engineers have adapted a decades-old computer aided design and manufacturing process to reproduce nanosize structures with features on the order of single molecules. The new automated technique for nanomanufacturing suggests that the emerging nanotechnology industry might capitalize on skills already mastered by today's engineering workforce, according to the researchers. "These tools allow you to go from basic, one-off scientific demonstrations of what can ...
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  • July 30, 2007

    Duke Scientists to Explore Networks and Systems of Biology

    DURHAM, N.C. -- The National Institute for General Medical Sciences has awarded Duke University a $14.5 million, five-year grant to establish a new national center for systems biology in the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP). The center will bring together experimentalists and modeling experts from biology, statistics, computer science, mathematics, physics and engineering to explore how the intricate biological networks that govern living cells operate at three different time scales: minutes, days and ...
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  • July 12, 2007

    Unraveling the Physics of DNA's Double Helix

    Researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have uncovered a missing link in scientists' understanding of the physical forces that give DNA its famous double helix shape. "The stability of DNA is so fundamental to life that it's important to understand all factors," said Piotr Marszalek, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials sciences at Duke. "If you want to create accurate models of DNA to study its interaction with proteins or drugs, for example, ...
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  • July 12, 2007

    Sensing Light with 'Liquid Lego'

    Note: The following article was adapted from a news release issued by the University of Oxford. Scientists at Oxford University and Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have used tiny water droplets to build a unique microscopic light sensor. Their approach turns water droplets into protocells: empty artificial cells that can be filled with different cellular components. In theory, networks of protocells could be used to simulate biological systems such as heart muscle or ...
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  • July 9, 2007

    'Virtual' Mouse Brains Now Available Online

    A multi-institutional consortium including Duke University has created startlingly crisp 3-D microscopic views of tiny mouse brains -- unveiled layer by layer -- by extending the capabilities of conventional magnetic resonance imaging. "These images can be more than 100,000 times higher resolution than a clinical MRI scan," said G. Allan Johnson, Duke's Charles E. Putman Distinguished Professor of radiology and professor of biomedical engineering and physics. He is first author of a report describing the innovations ...
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  • June 25, 2007

    Carolina Universities Form Photonics Consortium To Boost Technology Commercialization

    Getting photonics (light-based) technologies to the marketplace has just gotten easier. Duke University has joined four Carolina universities in forming the Carolinas Photonics Consortium (CPC). Representatives of North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Western Carolina University, Clemson University and Duke University signed a CPC Inter-Institutional Agreement that establishes a foundation for collaborative university work aimed at the commercialization of photonics or light-based technologies. "This is a tremendous opportunity to bring science ...
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  • June 20, 2007

    3-D Ultrasound Provides Window on the Brain

    Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have adapted a three-dimensional ultrasound scanner that might guide minimally invasive brain surgeries and provide better detection of a brain tumor's location. The "brain scope," which is inserted into a dime-sized hole in the skull, may be particularly useful for the bedside evaluation of critically ill patients when computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment is unavailable, the researchers said. They report the development in a ...
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  • June 11, 2007

    Theory of Physics Applies to Human Migration, Air Traffic Control and Corporate Sustainability

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Why does a railway network look like a river? Why do the streets of old Rome look like a leaf? Because whether their shape is determined by the interactions of molecules or the choices made by individual humans, all of these systems of flow are governed by a relatively simple new principle of thermodynamics. "Society, with all its layers and features of organization, is a flow system," say co-editors Adrian Bejan and ...
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  • June 5, 2007

    Diagnosing Skin Cancers with Light, Not Scalpels

    In an early step toward nonsurgical screening for malignant skin cancers, Duke University chemists have demonstrated a laser-based system that can capture three-dimensional images of the chemical and structural changes underway beneath the surface of human skin. "The standard way physicians do a diagnosis now is to cut out a mole and look at a slice of it with a microscope," said Warren Warren, the James B. Duke Professor of chemistry, radiology and biomedical engineering, ...
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  • June 1, 2007

    David J. Brady Elected SPIE Fellow

    David J. Brady David J. Brady, the Addy Family Professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE). Brady is one of 56 new Fellows chosen worldwide this year. SPIE Fellows are members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics, and imaging. They are honored for their technical achievement, for their service to the general optics community, ...
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  • June 1, 2007

    David J. Brady Elected SPIE Fellow

    David J. Brady David J. Brady, the Addy Family Professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE). Brady is one of 56 new Fellows chosen worldwide this year. SPIE Fellows are members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics, and imaging. They are honored for their technical achievement, for their service to the general optics community, ...
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  • May 30, 2007

    How Brain Pacemakers Erase Diseased Messages

    Brain "pacemakers" that have helped ease symptoms in people with Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders seem to work by drowning out the electrical signals of their diseased brains. Despite the clinical success of the devices, which have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and can be found in the heads of about 30,000 people, the mechanisms by which deep brain stimulation alleviates disease symptoms aren't well understood. Biomedical engineers at Duke University's Pratt School ...
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  • May 29, 2007

    Making 'Smarter' Use of 'Smart' Gels

    Once considered something of a laboratory novelty, 'smart' gels synthesized from polymers that can undergo dramatic transformations in response to changes in their surroundings are now poised to become integral mechanical components and sensors in the increasingly tiny devices of the future. Through a combination of computational and experimental efforts, a team of researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering aims to make the process of smart gel engineering even smarter. "These materials exhibit dramatic volume ...
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  • May 17, 2007

    Clinical Activity for Celsion's Thermodox® Reported

    Note: Article adapted from a news release issued by Celsion. Columbia, MD Early results from a Phase I clinical study of ThermoDox for treating patients with recurrent breast cancer on the chest wall revealed that after only two cycles of a low-dose, six-cycle regimen, six patients showed early signs of clinically meaningful activity, according to a release issued by Celsion Corporation. One patient had a complete response in the treated area, two patients had ...
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  • May 10, 2007

    Cutting Tropical Deforestation to Avert Global Warming Cheaply

    Slowing tropical deforestation is an essential and cost-effective way to avert severe climate change, according to a new study published in the May 10 Science Express, an advanced online publication of the journal Science. An international team of 11 top forest and climate researchers, including civil and environmental engineer Roni Avissar of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, found that cutting deforestation rates in half by mid-century would amount to 12 percent of the emissions reductions needed ...
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  • May 9, 2007

    Atmosphere-Sensing Helicopter Missions Bridge the Climate Forecasting Gap

    Before the missions began, Pratt writer Kendall Morgan sat down with civil and environmental engineer Roni Avissar to find out what operating the Duke Helicopter Observation Platform is really like. Helicopters are strictly limited in the amount and balance of weight they can carry. In order to help pack more in, Avissar says he's on a diet. Listen.Although incredibly demanding, Avissar says he enjoys the helicopter missions so much he considers them almost like a vacation. ...
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  • May 8, 2007

    'Shock' Engineers for Better Medical Treatment

    Pei Zhong's tireless efforts to technologically fine-tune the shock wave therapy used to pulverize kidney stones are not only leading to better treatment for that painful condition but also opening up surprising new avenues for medical advances, such as by manipulating genes and unleashing genetic assaults against tumors. These are all different applications of therapeutic ultrasound, an emerging field at the interface of engineering, biology and clinical medicine, said Zhong, who is an associate professor of ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    A Career on Wings: Earl Dowell's Long Fascination with Flight

    Earl Dowell For Earl Dowell, aerodynamics and structural dynamics expert and dean emeritus of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, a fascination with flight began years before he ever got close to an airplane. "When I was a small boy in Illinois, I remember seeing airplanes overhead and thinking: 'It would be fun to be there,'" recalled Dowell, who is William Holland Hall professor of mechanical engineering and materials science (MEMS). In those days, "growing up, no one I ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    A Career on Wings: Earl Dowell's Long Fascination with Flight

    Earl Dowell For Earl Dowell, aerodynamics and structural dynamics expert and dean emeritus of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, a fascination with flight began years before he ever got close to an airplane. "When I was a small boy in Illinois, I remember seeing airplanes overhead and thinking: 'It would be fun to be there,'" recalled Dowell, who is William Holland Hall professor of mechanical engineering and materials science (MEMS). In those days, "growing up, no one I ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Coulter-Duke Translational Partnership – Year Two

    Four new projects have been selected for funding through the 2007 call for proposals for the Coulter-Duke Translational Partnership. Biomedical engineering professor Ashutosh Chilkoti is partnering with Assistant Professor Philip Febbo of the Duke School of Medicine and Institute for Genome Science and Policy (IGSP) on a project titled "Ultra-Sensitive Microarray Platform for the Detection of Serum Markers of Prostate Cancer." Biomedical engineering Associate Professor Warren Grill is partnering with Associate Professor Cindy Amundsen of the Department ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Coulter-Duke Translational Partnership – Year Two

    Four new projects have been selected for funding through the 2007 call for proposals for the Coulter-Duke Translational Partnership. Biomedical engineering professor Ashutosh Chilkoti is partnering with Assistant Professor Philip Febbo of the Duke School of Medicine and Institute for Genome Science and Policy (IGSP) on a project titled "Ultra-Sensitive Microarray Platform for the Detection of Serum Markers of Prostate Cancer." Biomedical engineering Associate Professor Warren Grill is partnering with Associate Professor Cindy Amundsen of the Department ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Atmosphere-Sensing Helicopter Missions Bridge the Climate Forecasting Gap

    Roni Avissar with the Duke research helicopter The Duke University research helicopter bedecked with an atmosphere-sensing nose will participate in two missions this spring and summer designed to fill in the blanks in understanding of the dynamic lower atmosphere and its intimate connection to seasonal changes in land cover, according to environmental scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. By providing a vast amount of climate observation data, the researchers say that the missions will ...
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  • May 1, 2007

    Atmosphere-Sensing Helicopter Missions Bridge the Climate Forecasting Gap

    Roni Avissar with the Duke research helicopter The Duke University research helicopter bedecked with an atmosphere-sensing nose will participate in two missions this spring and summer designed to fill in the blanks in understanding of the dynamic lower atmosphere and its intimate connection to seasonal changes in land cover, according to environmental scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. By providing a vast amount of climate observation data, the researchers say that the missions will ...
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  • April 24, 2007

    Ultrasound Upgrade Produces Images That Work Like 3-D Movies

    Parents-to-be might soon don 3-D glasses in the ultrasound lab to see their developing fetuses in the womb "in living 3-D, just like at the IMAX movies," according to researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering.The same Duke team that first developed real-time, three-dimensional ultrasound imaging says it has now modified the commercial version of the scanner to produce an even more realistic perception of depth. Paired images seem to pop out of the ...
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  • April 10, 2007

    Keck Futures Grant Supports Development of Liquid Electrodes for 'Smart' Prosthetics

    The National Academies Keck Futures Initiative today announced that Warren Grill, of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, and David Martin, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, are recipients of a 2006 Futures grant to support their work on smart prosthetics. The competitive seed grants aim to fill a critical gap for research on bold new ideas, according to The National Academies. Grill and Martin will investigate whether rubber electrodes can record electrical signals from and ...
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  • April 6, 2007

    Antioxidant Chemicals Could Alter Mercury's Environmental Fate

    Antioxidant chemicals, including one produced by aquatic life during times of stress, may have a hand in the fate of mercury in watersheds, potentially influencing the toxic metal's entry into the food chain, according to a report by a researcher at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. The researcher reports in the April 1 Environmental Science & Technology that mercury and other trace metals react with a common antioxidant defense molecule to form stable complexes that ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    Nanomaterials' Fate: A Conversation with Mark Wiesner

    Mark Wiesner, professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Wiesner, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and an expert on the transport and fate of nanomaterials in the environment, was an invited speaker at BioVision 2007: The World Life Sciences Forum taking place in Lyon, France, from March 11-14. According to the BioVision web site, the forum addresses global issues in the life sciences in an effort to "mobilize foremost specialists ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    Nanomaterials' Fate: A Conversation with Mark Wiesner

    Mark Wiesner, professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Wiesner, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and an expert on the transport and fate of nanomaterials in the environment, was an invited speaker at BioVision 2007: The World Life Sciences Forum taking place in Lyon, France, from March 11-14. According to the BioVision web site, the forum addresses global issues in the life sciences in an effort to "mobilize foremost specialists ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    Light-Based Probe 'Sees' Early Cancers in First Tests on Human Tissue

    Listen to Adam Wax's answers to questions about the new device: --Why would you want to look at organ surfaces? --What is Barrett's esophagus and how is it linked to cancer? --Who is at risk of Barrett's esophagus? --How do doctors check for early cancer in the esophagus now? --What are the advantages of the new "fa/LCI" device? --What do changes in the cell nucleus mean? --How does the new device work? --Will this device be useful for other types of cancer? --Will there ...
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  • April 1, 2007

    Light-Based Probe 'Sees' Early Cancers in First Tests on Human Tissue

    Listen to Adam Wax's answers to questions about the new device: --Why would you want to look at organ surfaces? --What is Barrett's esophagus and how is it linked to cancer? --Who is at risk of Barrett's esophagus? --How do doctors check for early cancer in the esophagus now? --What are the advantages of the new "fa/LCI" device? --What do changes in the cell nucleus mean? --How does the new device work? --Will this device be useful for other types of cancer? --Will there ...
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  • March 26, 2007

    Light-Based Probe 'Sees' Early Cancers in First Tests on Human Tissue

    Listen to Adam Wax's answers to questions about the new device: --Why would you want to look at organ surfaces? --What is Barrett's esophagus and how is it linked to cancer? --Who is at risk of Barrett's esophagus? --How do doctors check for early cancer in the esophagus now? --What are the advantages of the new "fa/LCI" device? --What do changes in the cell nucleus mean? --How does the new device work? --Will this device be useful for other types of cancer? --Will there ...
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  • February 16, 2007

    Biomedical Engineers Advance on 'Smart Bladder Pacemaker'

    Duke University biomedical engineering researchers have moved a step closer to a "smart bladder pacemaker" that might one day restore bladder control in patients with spinal cord injury or neurological disease. The team's latest findings show that a device that taps into the urinary "circuit" in the spinal cord could selectively coordinate the contraction and release of muscles required for maintaining continence. Warren Grill of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and his colleagues have shown in cats ...
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  • February 13, 2007

    Molecular 'Fishing' Technique Paves Way for Advanced Hand-Held Sensing Devices

    A new molecular "fishing" technique developed by researchers at Duke University and Duke's Pratt School of Engineering lays the groundwork for future advances in hand-held sensing devices. Hand-held devices used for medical testing or environmental and food-safety monitoring could quickly and precisely measure concentrations of virtually any chemical substance, including blood proteins, toxic pollutants and dangerous biological agents, in a test solution, according to the researchers. The researchers describe the chemical methodology that would enable such devices ...
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  • February 12, 2007

    Lubricant's Role in Keeping Joints Limber Comes into Sharper Focus

    Using a method that allows precise measurement of the biomechanical properties of the hip joints in mice, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have found new evidence that an ingredient of joint fluid called lubricin plays a significant role in keeping joints limber. The researchers say the finding offers the strongest evidence yet that treatments designed to increase levels of lubricin in humans may help stall the deterioration of arthritic joints. The team found that ...
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  • February 5, 2007

    Woven Scaffolds Could Improve Cartilage Repair

    Using a unique weaving machine of their design, Duke University Medical Center researchers have created a three-dimensional fabric "scaffold" that could greatly improve the ability of physicians to repair damaged joints with the patient's own stem cells. "If further experiments are successful, the scaffold could be used in clinical trials within three or four years," said Franklin Moutos, a graduate student in the Orthopedic Bioengineering Laboratory who designed and built the weaving machine. "The first joints ...
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  • January 4, 2007

    Skilled, Educated Immigrants Contribute Significantly to U.S. Economy

    Note to Editors: "America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs" is available online. Durham, NC -- Immigrant entrepreneurs founded 25.3 percent of the U.S. engineering and technology companies established in the past decade, according to a new study from Duke University. What's more, foreign nationals -- those living in the United States who are not citizens -- contributed to an estimated 24.2 percent of international patent applications in 2006. The study, conducted by a student research team at Duke's Master ...
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  • January 2, 2007

    Invisibility Cloak Named One of Science's Top Ten "Breakthroughs" of 2006

    An "invisibility cloak" designed and tested by Duke University engineers was named one of Science Magazine's top ten breakthroughs of 2006. Science's Top Ten list appears in the journal's December 22, 2006, issue. The cloak, which the magazine refers to as "the ultimate camouflage," deflects microwave beams so they flow around an object hidden inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there at all. The research team, led by David R. Smith of ...
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  • January 2, 2007

    Harnessing Fat to Attack Cancer

    Scientists at Duke University Medical Center and Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have harnessed the much maligned fat particle to serve a higher purpose: battling human cancers. The researchers have engineered microscopic fat bubbles into "smart bombs" by packing them with anticancer drugs and dispatching them on a mission to seek and destroy cancerous tumors. Heating the tumor from the outside with microwave energy attracts the anticancer bombs to the tumor, the scientists said. Within 20 seconds ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    New Institute for Brain, Mind, Genes and Behavior Established

    A new Duke University institute is asking what makes people think, feel and behave the way they do -- and its researchers say the answers may not only advance scientific understanding but also provide insight into societal problems and help patients who have a variety of disorders or diseases. One of several interdisciplinary groups that will participate in the new institute is the Duke Center for Neuroengineering. "The mission of the Institute for Brain, Mind, Genes ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    New Institute for Brain, Mind, Genes and Behavior Established

    A new Duke University institute is asking what makes people think, feel and behave the way they do -- and its researchers say the answers may not only advance scientific understanding but also provide insight into societal problems and help patients who have a variety of disorders or diseases. One of several interdisciplinary groups that will participate in the new institute is the Duke Center for Neuroengineering. "The mission of the Institute for Brain, Mind, Genes ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    Invisibility Cloak Named One of Science's Top Breakthroughs of 2006

    David R. Smith and David Schurig An "invisibility cloak" designed and tested by Duke University engineers was named one of Science magazine's top 10 breakthroughs of 2006. Science's Top Ten list appears in the journal's Dec. 22, 2006, issue. The cloak, which the magazine refers to as "the ultimate camouflage," deflects microwave beams so they flow around an object hidden inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there. The research team, led by David ...
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  • January 1, 2007

    Invisibility Cloak Named One of Science's Top Breakthroughs of 2006

    David R. Smith and David Schurig An "invisibility cloak" designed and tested by Duke University engineers was named one of Science magazine's top 10 breakthroughs of 2006. Science's Top Ten list appears in the journal's Dec. 22, 2006, issue. The cloak, which the magazine refers to as "the ultimate camouflage," deflects microwave beams so they flow around an object hidden inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there. The research team, led by David ...
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  • December 14, 2006

    New Institute for Brain, Mind, Genes and Behavior Established

    A new Duke University institute is asking what makes people think, feel and behave the way they do -- and its researchers say the answers may not only advance scientific understanding but also provide insight into societal problems and help patients who have a variety of disorders or diseases. One of several interdisciplinary groups that will participate in the new institute is the Duke Center for Neuroengineering. "The mission of the Institute for Brain, Mind, Genes ...
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  • December 12, 2006

    "Molecular Condom" Holds Promise in the Fight against HIV/AIDS

    Scientists at the University of Utah and Duke University designed a "molecular condom" that women could use daily to prevent AIDS. The condom consists of a vaginally inserted liquid that turns into a gel-like coating and then, when exposed to semen, returns to liquid form and releases an antiviral drug. "We have developed a new vaginal gel that we call a molecular condom because it is composed of molecules that are liquid at room temperature and, ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Invisibility Cloak Lands Duke Engineers on 'Scientific American 50'

    David R. Smith and David Schurig hold a sample of metamaterial with their "invisibility cloak" in the background. Two researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have been named to the "Scientific American 50" for their work on developing an "invisibility cloak." Compiled by Scientific American magazine, the roster of leaders in research, business and public policy appeared in the December 2006 issue, which hit newsstands on Nov. 21. The complete list of honorees is also ...
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  • December 1, 2006

    Invisibility Cloak Lands Duke Engineers on 'Scientific American 50'

    David R. Smith and David Schurig hold a sample of metamaterial with their "invisibility cloak" in the background. Two researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have been named to the "Scientific American 50" for their work on developing an "invisibility cloak." Compiled by Scientific American magazine, the roster of leaders in research, business and public policy appeared in the December 2006 issue, which hit newsstands on Nov. 21. The complete list of honorees is also ...
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  • November 29, 2006

    Probing Hidden Chemistries with Light

    by Monte Basgall As part of a new computerized approach to chemical analysis, researchers at the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics are developing a way to use near-infrared laser beams as probes to measure levels of alcohol in a person's bloodstream. The method could prove to have a number of advantages over conventional breathalyzers, according to Scott McCain, a graduate student working on the project. "Unlike with breathalyzer examinations, with our sensors the subject doesn't have to be awake ...
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  • November 6, 2006

    Invisibility Cloak Lands Duke Engineers on 'Scientific American 50'

    Two researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have been named to the "Scientific American 50" for their work on developing an "invisibility cloak." Compiled by Scientific American magazine, the roster of leaders in research, business and public policy will appear in the December 2006 issue, expected on newsstands Nov. 21. David R. Smith, Augustine Scholar and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and David Schurig, research associate in electrical and computer engineering, were selected ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    Duke Receives $2.5 Million Grant for Visual Studies

    The Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE) will be central to Duke's new visual studies initiative, Rachael Brady said. Duke University has received a $2.5 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create a Visual Studies Initiative, a broad-based effort to improve how visual images are understood and to foster research and teaching in this area. A distinctive feature of the initiative is its inclusion of engineering and the computational sciences as part of exploring ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    Duke Receives $2.5 Million Grant for Visual Studies

    The Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE) will be central to Duke's new visual studies initiative, Rachael Brady said. Duke University has received a $2.5 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to create a Visual Studies Initiative, a broad-based effort to improve how visual images are understood and to foster research and teaching in this area. A distinctive feature of the initiative is its inclusion of engineering and the computational sciences as part of exploring ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    Packard Fellow to Examine Processing Speed of 'Reprogrammed' Bacteria

    Packard Fellow Lingchong You Lingchong You, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering, has won a fellowship from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation for his research into the information processing speed of bacteria that have been "reprogrammed" to perform new, and potentially useful, tasks. The Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering aims to provide support for "unusually creative researchers" within their first three years as faculty, according to the foundation's web site. ...
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  • November 1, 2006

    Packard Fellow to Examine Processing Speed of 'Reprogrammed' Bacteria

    Packard Fellow Lingchong You Lingchong You, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering, has won a fellowship from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation for his research into the information processing speed of bacteria that have been "reprogrammed" to perform new, and potentially useful, tasks. The Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering aims to provide support for "unusually creative researchers" within their first three years as faculty, according to the foundation's web site. ...
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  • October 30, 2006

    3-D Ultrasound Scanner Could Guide Robotic Surgeries

    Duke University engineers have shown that a three-dimensional ultrasound scanner they developed can successfully guide a surgical robot. The scanner could find application in various medical settings, according to the researchers. They said the scanner ultimately might enable surgeries to be performed without surgeons, a capability that could prove valuable in space stations or other remote locations. "It's the first time, to our knowledge, that anyone has used the information in a 3-D ultrasound scan to actually ...
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  • October 30, 2006

    Duke Packard Fellow to Examine Processing Speed of "Reprogrammed" Bacteria

    Lingchong You, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, has won a fellowship from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation for his research into the information processing speed of bacteria that have been "reprogrammed" to perform new, and potentially useful, tasks. The Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering aims to provide support for "unusually creative researchers" within their first three years as faculty, according to the foundation's web site. You--one of ...
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  • October 26, 2006

    Mark Wiesner: Making Nanotechnology Safe - Engineer studies the consequences of going small

    By Rachel Adelson Durham, NC -- Mark Wiesner wants to save the planet, one molecule at a time. A nanotechnology expert who joined Duke this semester as a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering, Wiesner is committed to managing the environmental risks of a growing industrial revolution before any damage is done. Wiesner was among the first people to call attention to the way that production and use of new nanomaterials ...
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  • October 19, 2006

    First Demonstration of a Working Invisibility Cloak

    A team led by scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering has demonstrated the first working "invisibility cloak." The cloak deflects microwave beams so they flow around a "hidden" object inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there at all. Cloaks that render objects essentially invisible to microwaves could have a variety of wireless communications or radar applications, according to the researchers. Watch the video. The team reported its findings on ...
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  • October 16, 2006

    New Engineered Drug May Offer Prolonged Arthritis Relief

    Researchers at Duke University have devised a new way to significantly prolong the effects of an anti-inflammatory drug, potentially making it useful for providing longer-lasting treatment for osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis.The modified drug, which would be injected directly into arthritic joints, could last for several weeks rather than just the few hours the unmodified drug would last, the researchers said. In their study, the researchers modified a drug called interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL1RA). ...
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  • October 3, 2006

    Improving Microbicide Design for HIV/AIDS Prevention

    Duke University biomedical engineers have developed a computer tool they say could lead to improvements in topical microbicides being developed for women to use to prevent infection by the virus that causes AIDS.Providing women with improved microbicides is a pressing challenge because women now account for a growing number of new infections worldwide, the researchers said.By applying fundamentals of physics and chemistry, the researchers developed a computer model that can predict the effectiveness of various ...
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  • October 3, 2006

    Improving Microbicide Design for HIV/AIDS Prevention

    Duke University biomedical engineers have developed a computer tool they say could lead to improvements in topical microbicides being developed for women to use to prevent infection by the virus that causes AIDS.Providing women with improved microbicides is a pressing challenge because women now account for a growing number of new infections worldwide, the researchers said.By applying fundamentals of physics and chemistry, the researchers developed a computer model that can predict the effectiveness of various ...
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  • September 29, 2006

    Study Defines Effective Microbicide Design for HIV/AIDS Prevention

    Duke University biomedical engineers have developed a computer tool they say could lead to improvements in topical microbicides being developed for women to use to prevent infection by the virus that causes AIDS. Providing women with improved microbicides is a pressing challenge because women now account for a growing number of new infections worldwide, the researchers said. By applying fundamentals of physics and chemistry, the researchers developed a computer model that can predict the effectiveness of various ...
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  • September 1, 2006

    Rising Startup Sets Sights on Diagnostics for Research Animals

    Advanced Liquid Logic's founders got their start in the lab of ECE professor Richard Fair (above). Advanced Liquid Logic, a startup company founded by two Ph.D. graduates from Duke electrical and computer engineering, is growing by leaps and bounds. The company aims to miniaturize and automate clinical and research laboratory tests by taking advantage of the natural surface tension of liquid drops. "Our vision is to make chemical processing as routine and simple as information processing is ...
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  • September 1, 2006

    Rising Startup Sets Sights on Diagnostics for Research Animals

    Advanced Liquid Logic's founders got their start in the lab of ECE professor Richard Fair (above). Advanced Liquid Logic, a startup company founded by two Ph.D. graduates from Duke electrical and computer engineering, is growing by leaps and bounds. The company aims to miniaturize and automate clinical and research laboratory tests by taking advantage of the natural surface tension of liquid drops. "Our vision is to make chemical processing as routine and simple as information processing is ...
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  • August 17, 2006

    Bejan Receives Luikov Medal for International Impact on Thermal Sciences

    Adrian Bejan, J. A. Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, has received the Luikov Medal for his contributions to the field of thermal sciences, including his development of the constructal law of design in nature. The awards ceremony was held at the International Heat Transfer Conference in Sydney on Aug. 14. "I'm truly honored to have received this award, one of the rarest in the thermal sciences worldwide," Bejan said. ...
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  • July 27, 2006

    Engineer, Two Other Duke University Faculty Members Win White House Award

    WASHINGTON, D.C. -- An engineer and two other Duke University faculty members have won the highest honor that the U.S. government bestows on young scientists and engineers. Silvia Ferrari, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering; Jonathan Mattingly, an associate professor of mathematics; and Tannishtha Reya, an assistant professor of pharmacology and cancer biology in the medical school, received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at a ceremony Wednesday, ...
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  • June 28, 2006

    Computers and Art Meld in Virtual Reality Underworld

    Duke's DiVE project proves a mecca for research and education Written by Monte Basgall Durham, N.C. -- Doves swirl over the heads of a small group of travelers, one bird carrying a branch in its beak. But the scene suddenly changes to a copse of moss-hung trees, one sporting a golden bough. Then, it changes again. Now the travelers, all wearing strange dark glasses, are racing down a river through a rapids-splashed chasm. Finally, they reach the calmness ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    Award for Study of Ultrathin Silicon Dielectrics

    Hisham Massoud Professor Hisham Massoud of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has been awarded the 2006 Electronics and Photonics Division Award of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) for his work on ultrathin silicon dielectric films. Such ultrathin films are a basic component in silicon microelectronics, and increasingly thinner films improve the performance of future generations of microchips. Massoud received the award at the 209th annual ECS meeting held on May 7-12 in Denver where he was also elected ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    Award for Study of Ultrathin Silicon Dielectrics

    Hisham Massoud Professor Hisham Massoud of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has been awarded the 2006 Electronics and Photonics Division Award of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) for his work on ultrathin silicon dielectric films. Such ultrathin films are a basic component in silicon microelectronics, and increasingly thinner films improve the performance of future generations of microchips. Massoud received the award at the 209th annual ECS meeting held on May 7-12 in Denver where he was also elected ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    'Metal Sandwich' May Break Superconductor Record

    Aleksey Kolmogorov and Stefano Curtarolo After an exhaustive data search for new compounds, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have discovered a theoretical "metal sandwich" that is expected to be a good superconductor. Superconductive materials have no resistance to the flow of electric current. The new lithium monoboride (LiB) compound is a "binary alloy" consisting of two layers of boron -- the "bread" of the atomic sandwich -- with lithium metal "filling" in between, the ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    'Metal Sandwich' May Break Superconductor Record

    Aleksey Kolmogorov and Stefano Curtarolo After an exhaustive data search for new compounds, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have discovered a theoretical "metal sandwich" that is expected to be a good superconductor. Superconductive materials have no resistance to the flow of electric current. The new lithium monoboride (LiB) compound is a "binary alloy" consisting of two layers of boron -- the "bread" of the atomic sandwich -- with lithium metal "filling" in between, the ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    Extreme Lab Makeover for Civil and Environmental Engineers

    Professor Heileen Hsu-Kim in her new lab space. Research and teaching labs in the department of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) are getting a makeover. A portion of the basement of Hudson Hall is currently in the second of three phases of renovation designed to meet the growing needs of the group's researchers and students. "The new facilities provided by the renovation will help to make us more competitive with other institutions," said professor David Schaad, assistant ...
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  • June 1, 2006

    Extreme Lab Makeover for Civil and Environmental Engineers

    Professor Heileen Hsu-Kim in her new lab space. Research and teaching labs in the department of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) are getting a makeover. A portion of the basement of Hudson Hall is currently in the second of three phases of renovation designed to meet the growing needs of the group's researchers and students. "The new facilities provided by the renovation will help to make us more competitive with other institutions," said professor David Schaad, assistant ...
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  • May 25, 2006

    Theoretical Blueprint for Invisibility Cloak Reported

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Using a new design theory, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Imperial College London have developed the blueprint for an invisibility cloak. Once devised, the cloak could have numerous uses, from defense applications to wireless communications, the researchers said.Such a cloak could hide any object so well that observers would be totally unaware of its presence, according to the researchers. In principle, their invisibility cloak could be realized with ...
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  • May 24, 2006

    Duke's Hisham Massoud Elected Fellow of the Electrochemical Society

    DURHAM, N.C. Duke University electrical and computer engineering Professor Hisham Massoud has been elected a fellow of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) in recognition for his contributions to the understanding of silicon oxidation kinetics, ultrathin gate dielectrics, and the Si-SiO2 interface. Massoud's pioneering contributions in the field of silicon oxidation in the ultrathin-oxide regime are universally implemented in process modeling software tools used world wide to design ultrathin gate-insulator processes in IC technology. In ...
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  • May 11, 2006

    Duke's Robert Clark to Speak on Challenges and Benefits of Interdisciplinary Research Teaming - Keynote at International Symposium for Biologically-inspired Design and Engineering

    ATLANTA Duke mechanical engineer Robert Clark will present a keynote talk on the challenges and benefits of establishing a vibrant interdisciplinary research program on Friday, May 12, at the International Symposium for Biologically-inspired Design and Engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Clark, senior associate dean at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke, is the director of Duke's Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems (CBIMMS) (http://cbimms.duke.edu). CBIMMS, established in 2001, encompasses a ...
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  • May 8, 2006

    Hisham Massoud Wins Award for Study of Ultrathin Silicon Dielectrics

    Professor Hisham Massoud of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has been awarded the 2006 Electronics and Photonics Division Award of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) for his work on ultrathin silicon dielectric films. Such ultrathin films are a basic component in silicon microelectronics, and increasingly thinner films improve the performance of future generations of microchips. Massoud received the award at the 209th annual ECS meeting held on May 7-12 in Denver. "As the size of the transistors shrinks ...
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  • May 8, 2006

    New 'Metal Sandwich' May Break Superconductor Record, Theory Suggests

    DURHAM, N.C. -- After an exhaustive data search for new compounds, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have discovered a theoretical "metal sandwich" that is expected to be a good superconductor. Superconductive materials have no resistance to the flow of electric current. The new lithium monoboride (LiB) compound is a "binary alloy" consisting of two layers of boron -- the "bread" of the atomic sandwich -- with lithium metal "filling" in between, the researchers ...
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  • May 1, 2006

    Duke Engineer Wins Beckman Young Investigator Award

    Jingdong Tian Biomedical engineer Jingdong Tian of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has been named a Beckman Young Investigator by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Tian will receive $264,000 over three years to pursue research titled "High-Throughput Forward Engineering of Novel Biological Systems Using Microfluidic DNA Microchip." Tian aims to develop new strategies and enabling technologies for efficient engineering, fabrication, and optimization of novel, genetically encoded bionanosystems. Such technology has the potential to aid in gene ...
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  • May 1, 2006

    Duke Engineer Wins Beckman Young Investigator Award

    Jingdong Tian Biomedical engineer Jingdong Tian of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has been named a Beckman Young Investigator by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Tian will receive $264,000 over three years to pursue research titled "High-Throughput Forward Engineering of Novel Biological Systems Using Microfluidic DNA Microchip." Tian aims to develop new strategies and enabling technologies for efficient engineering, fabrication, and optimization of novel, genetically encoded bionanosystems. Such technology has the potential to aid in gene ...
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  • May 1, 2006

    Strong Showing for Pratt at American Chemical Society Meeting

    Stefan Zauscher Representatives of the Pratt School of Engineering made an impressive showing at the 2006 American Chemical Society (ACS) meetings held in Atlanta from March 26-30. Topics presented by the Pratt group ranged from plasmonic nanoparticles to the effect of glycoproteins on joint friction. The majority of those in attendance from the Pratt School participated in a symposium centered on the emerging and interdisciplinary field of "bionanostructures and interfaces," organized by Pratt professor Stefan Zauscher and ...
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  • May 1, 2006

    Strong Showing for Pratt at American Chemical Society Meeting

    Stefan Zauscher Representatives of the Pratt School of Engineering made an impressive showing at the 2006 American Chemical Society (ACS) meetings held in Atlanta from March 26-30. Topics presented by the Pratt group ranged from plasmonic nanoparticles to the effect of glycoproteins on joint friction. The majority of those in attendance from the Pratt School participated in a symposium centered on the emerging and interdisciplinary field of "bionanostructures and interfaces," organized by Pratt professor Stefan Zauscher and ...
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  • May 1, 2006

    Duke Group Tackles 'Nanoethics' Education

    An interdisciplinary group of Duke experts has set out to advance ethics education for researchers working on problems at the nano-scale on the order of billionths of a meter, or 80,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Scientific breakthroughs in nanotechnology are expected to increase the speed and efficiency of computers, advance medicine through tissue engineering and lead to the emergence of materials with entirely new physical and chemical properties. However, such advances ...
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  • May 1, 2006

    Duke Group Tackles 'Nanoethics' Education

    An interdisciplinary group of Duke experts has set out to advance ethics education for researchers working on problems at the nano-scale on the order of billionths of a meter, or 80,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Scientific breakthroughs in nanotechnology are expected to increase the speed and efficiency of computers, advance medicine through tissue engineering and lead to the emergence of materials with entirely new physical and chemical properties. However, such advances ...
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  • April 14, 2006

    Duke Engineer Wins Beckman Young Investigator Award

    Biomedical engineer Jingdong Tian of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has been named a Beckman Young Investigator by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Tian will receive $264,000 over three years to pursue research titled "High-Throughput Forward Engineering of Novel Biological Systems Using Microfluidic DNA Microchip." Tian aims to develop new strategies and enabling technologies for efficient engineering, fabrication, and optimization of novel, genetically encoded bionanosystems. Such technology has the potential to aid in gene medicine ...
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  • April 12, 2006

    Duke Research Teams Win Keck Futures Initiatives Grants

    Two research teams led by Duke faculty have been granted $75,000 each from the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative in support of interdisciplinary research on genomics and infectious disease. Duke won two grants out of a total of 14 awarded. Debra Schwinn, professor of anesthesiology, pharmacology/cancer biology and surgery at the School of Medicine, leads a team developing an inexpensive diagnostic for malaria using combined nanotechnology and genomic approaches. With this project, the researchers will develop ...
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  • April 4, 2006

    Factor Stimulates Cartilage Growth from Stem Cells

    A novel growth factor significantly improves the ability of specialized stem cells derived from human fat to be transformed into cartilage cells, according to Duke University Medical Center and Pratt School of Engineering researchers. Such growth factors are crucial to the bioengineering of tissues for clinical use in humans, the researchers said, because cells would need to be grown quickly and in large numbers in order to be practical. For the current study, as well as ...
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  • April 1, 2006

    Duke Awards First Coulter Translational Research Grants

    The Duke-Coulter Translational Partners Grant Program has selected its first four projects for funding, focusing on improved cancer treatment, intraoperative breast cancer diagnoses, improved therapy for degenerative arthritis of the knee, and bioengineered cartilage for hip joint repair. Each team will receive roughly $100,000 to bring their technology to a marketable stage. Farshid Guilak, professor of orthopaedic surgery and biomedical engineering, is partnering with Kam Leong, professor of biomedical engineering and surgery and T. Parker Vail, ...
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  • April 1, 2006

    Duke Awards First Coulter Translational Research Grants

    The Duke-Coulter Translational Partners Grant Program has selected its first four projects for funding, focusing on improved cancer treatment, intraoperative breast cancer diagnoses, improved therapy for degenerative arthritis of the knee, and bioengineered cartilage for hip joint repair. Each team will receive roughly $100,000 to bring their technology to a marketable stage. Farshid Guilak, professor of orthopaedic surgery and biomedical engineering, is partnering with Kam Leong, professor of biomedical engineering and surgery and T. Parker Vail, ...
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  • April 1, 2006

    Pineapple Farming Practice Threatens Human Health in Ghana

    Fred Boadu (far right) collects water from a borehole in Nsawam, Ghana. In the tropical West African nation of Ghana, intense farming practices combined with characteristics of the local geology are making for a dangerous mix, reports Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Fred Boadu. Fertilizers and pesticides used to boost the yield of pineapples grown in the country's thin soils are trickling down through fractured bedrock directly into the water supply below. The new findings ...
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  • April 1, 2006

    Pineapple Farming Practice Threatens Human Health in Ghana

    Fred Boadu (far right) collects water from a borehole in Nsawam, Ghana. In the tropical West African nation of Ghana, intense farming practices combined with characteristics of the local geology are making for a dangerous mix, reports Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Fred Boadu. Fertilizers and pesticides used to boost the yield of pineapples grown in the country's thin soils are trickling down through fractured bedrock directly into the water supply below. The new findings ...
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  • April 1, 2006

    Three Duke Engineers Win NSF Early Career Awards

    Jungsang Kim, Adrienne Stiff-Roberts, Sule Ozev Three researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have won Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation, its most prestigious honor for junior faculty members. The awards went to assistant professors of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) Adrienne Stiff-Roberts, Jungsang Kim and Sule Ozev. The CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become academic leaders, according ...
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  • April 1, 2006

    Three Duke Engineers Win NSF Early Career Awards

    Jungsang Kim, Adrienne Stiff-Roberts, Sule Ozev Three researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have won Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation, its most prestigious honor for junior faculty members. The awards went to assistant professors of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) Adrienne Stiff-Roberts, Jungsang Kim and Sule Ozev. The CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become academic leaders, according ...
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  • March 30, 2006

    3D Ultrasound Device Poised to Advance Minimally Invasive Surgery

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Three-dimensional ultrasound probes built by researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have imaged the beating hearts of dogs. The engineers said their demonstration showed that the probes could give surgeons a better view during human endoscopic surgeries in which operations are performed through tiny "keyhole" incisions. If the probes prove beneficial in human testing, the advance might lead to more precise and safer endoscopic surgeries, said the Duke engineers. The researchers reported ...
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  • March 30, 2006

    Magnetism Shepherds Microlenses to Excavate 'Nanocavities'

    ATLANTA -- A Duke University engineer is "herding" tiny lenses with magnetic ferrofluids, precisely aligning them so that they focus bursts of light to excavate patterns of cavities on surfaces. Such photolithographically produced "nanocavities" - each only billionths of a meter across might serve as repositories for molecules engineered as chemical detectors, said Benjamin Yellen, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. Alternatively, he said, ...
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  • March 29, 2006

    New Insight into Joint Lubrication that Keeps Osteoarthritis at Bay

    ATLANTA -- New evidence to explain how the body's natural joint lubricant prevents the wear and tear that can lead to osteoarthritis has been uncovered by researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering The findings may lead to new methods for treating arthritis, the researchers said. The team found in realistic models of joints that, rather than simply reducing friction, a component of joint fluid called lubricin forms a very thin barrier that repels joint ...
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  • March 29, 2006

    Duke Engineers Building 'Erasible' Detectors, 'Nanobrushes' and DNA 'Highrises'

    ATLANTA -- A Duke University engineering group is doing pioneering work at very diminutive dimensions. Their basic studies could lead to genetically engineered proteins that can form erasable chemical detectors; self-grown forests of molecular "bottlebrushes" that keep themselves contamination-free; and auto-assembled DNA "towers" that could become anchors for the tiniest of devices. Professor of biomedical engineering Ashutosh Chilkoti of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering will describe such advances in designing bio-detectors and structures scaled in the ...
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  • March 17, 2006

    Three Duke Engineers Win NSF Early Career Awards

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Three researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have won Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation, its most prestigious honor for junior faculty members. The awards went to assistant professors of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) Adrienne Stiff-Roberts, Jungsang Kim and Sule Ozev. The CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become academic leaders, according to ...
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  • March 17, 2006

    Tuan Vo-Dinh to Lead Duke's Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Tuan Vo-Dinh, a pioneer in the field of photonics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has joined the biomedical engineering department at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, where he will serve as director of the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics. Vo-Dinh said he plans to establish Duke as a national "center of gravity" for photonics research by tapping into the breadth of faculty expertise and facilities at the Pratt School, as well as Duke's ...
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  • March 9, 2006

    Light-Based Device Probes for Early Cancer

    A novel device that could use light to harmlessly and almost instantly probe for early signs of cancer has been developed by researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The device would allow physicians to search for cancer in epithelial cells that line body surfaces, including the skin, lungs and digestive and reproductive tracts, by simply inserting a fiber optic probe. The team has reported the first clinically practical version of their "angle-resolved low coherence interferometry" ...
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  • March 2, 2006

    Weighting Cancer Drugs To Make Them Hit Tumors Harder

    Scientists have devised a blueprint for boosting anti-cancer drugs' effectiveness and lowering their toxicity by attaching the equivalent of a lead sinker onto the drugs. This extra weight makes the drugs penetrate and accumulate inside tumors more effectively. Chemotherapy drugs often fall short of achieving their full impact because the drugs diffuse in and out of the tumor too rapidly, said the scientists from Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and Duke University Medical Center. The scientists increased ...
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  • March 1, 2006

    Leong to Lead Initiative Aimed at Nanomedicine

    Kam Leong Kam Leong, a national leader in drug and gene delivery at Johns Hopkins University, has joined the department of biomedical engineering at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, where he will serve as director of the school's Bioengineering Initiative. Leong said he plans to focus on the emerging field of "nanotherapeutics," the application of devices on the scale of nanometers - one billionth of a meter -- for treating disease via drug, gene and ...
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  • March 1, 2006

    Leong to Lead Initiative Aimed at Nanomedicine

    Kam Leong Kam Leong, a national leader in drug and gene delivery at Johns Hopkins University, has joined the department of biomedical engineering at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, where he will serve as director of the school's Bioengineering Initiative. Leong said he plans to focus on the emerging field of "nanotherapeutics," the application of devices on the scale of nanometers - one billionth of a meter -- for treating disease via drug, gene and ...
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  • February 21, 2006

    Kam Leong to Lead Duke Initiative Aimed at Nanomedicine

    Kam Leong, a national leader in drug and gene delivery at Johns Hopkins University, has joined the department of biomedical engineering at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, where he will serve as director of the school's Bioengineering Initiative. Leong said he plans to focus on the emerging field of "nanotherapeutics," the application of devices on the scale of nanometers - one billionth of a meter -- for treating disease via drug, gene and immunization ...
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  • February 16, 2006

    Clearest Video of Lightning-Generated 'Sprites' High Above Thunderstorms Captured

    Note to editors: High-speed video of a lightning-generated sprite is available in Quicktime format at http://quicktime.oit.duke.edu/news/sprites.mp4 and in RealPlayer format at http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/video/sprites.ram. Still photos are also available upon request. Steve Cummer can be reached at (919) 660-5256 or cummer@ee.duke.edu. DURHAM, N.C. -- Researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have captured the best images ever produced of "sprites" -- mysterious flashes of light resembling giant undulating jellyfish that can occur above strong thunderstorms -- using a ...
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  • February 13, 2006

    New 3-D Breast Scanner Lowers Radiation Dose, Improves Image

    Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have created a new breast scanner that will dramatically improve their ability to visualize small tumors while also reducing radiation exposure to one-tenth that of normal mammograms. Moreover, the new device does not compress the breast, as do traditional mammograms. The new scanner uses computed tomography (CT) a sophisticated form of X-ray imaging -- with a unique variation: it provides a three-dimensional image of the breast. Moreover, the ...
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  • February 9, 2006

    Constructal Theory Predicts Global Climate Patterns In Simple Way

    A unifying physics principle that describes design in nature predicts, in surprisingly straightforward fashion, the basic features of global circulation and climate, according to researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and the University of Evora in Portugal. They said the new approach to climate may have important implications for forecasting environmental change. The researchers found that the "constructal theory" can predict the global circulation that determines the boundaries between desert and tropical forests as ...
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  • February 4, 2006

    Engineered Heart Tissue Offers Insights into Irregular Heartbeats, Defibrillator Failure

    Note: Video of electrical activity in engineered heart tissue is available as a Quicktime file or as a Realmedia file. In the movie, voltage sensitive dyes cause the cells to fluoresce in proportion to their electrical activity level. The colors, ranging from red to blue, denote the level of cell activity, with red indicating active cells and blue cells at rest. Engineers who have induced heart cells in culture to mimic the properties of the heart ...
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  • January 24, 2006

    Fruit Fly's Beating Heart Helps Identify Human Heart Disease Genes

    In a discovery that could greatly accelerate the search for genetic causes of heart disease, a multi-disciplinary Duke University research team has found that the common fruit fly can serve as a powerful new model for testing human genes implicated in heart disease. The finding is important, the Duke team said, because the entire genome of the fruit fly is well understood and catalogued, enabling researchers to systemically screen genes to identify potential gene mutations or ...
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  • January 16, 2006

    Protein "Nanosprings" Most Resilient in Nature

    A component of many proteins has been found to constitute one of the most powerful and resilient molecular "springs" in nature, researchers have discovered. The engineers and biologists from Duke University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute say their discovery could lead to a new understanding of mechanical processes within the living cell. The discovery also could provide potent nanoscale "shock absorbers" or "gate-opening springs" in tiny nanomachines. The team's findings were published in an advanced ...
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  • December 31, 2005

    Unified Physics Theory Explains Animals' Running, Flying, Swimming

    A single unifying physics theory can essentially describe how animals of every ilk, from flying insects to fish, get around, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Pennsylvania State University have found. The team reports that all animals bear the same stamp of physics in their design. The researchers show that the so-called "constructal theory" can explain basic characteristics of locomotion for every creature -- how fast they get from one place to another ...
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  • December 24, 2005

    DNA Self-Assembly Used to Mass-Produce Patterned Nanostructures

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University scientists have used the self-assembling properties of DNA to mass-produce nanometer-scale structures in the shape of 4x4 grids, on which patterns of molecules can be specified. They said the achievement represents a step toward mass-producing electronic or optical circuits at a scale 10 times smaller than the smallest circuits now being manufactured. Instead of using silicon as the platform for tiny circuits, as is done in the current manufacturing technique of ...
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  • December 22, 2005

    Planting Trees to Combat Global Warming May Cause Other Environmental Problems, Study Suggests

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Growing tree plantations to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to mitigate global warming -- so called "carbon sequestration" -- could trigger environmental changes that outweigh some of the benefits, a multi-institutional team led by Duke University suggested in a new report. Those effects include water and nutrient depletion and increased soil salinity and acidity, said the researchers. The findings demonstrate the utility of regional climate models for forecasting the broader environmental implications ...
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  • December 7, 2005

    How Brain-operated Machines Can Be Stable, Functional

    DURHAM, N.C. -- In order to function stably over long periods, brain-operated devices such as neural prosthetic limbs for paralyzed people will require brain signals fed from hundreds of infinitesimal recording electrodes in the brain, Duke University researchers have concluded. Their findings in studies with monkeys are defining the requirements for successful brain-machine systems, as the researchers progress toward the first clinical trials of fully functional neural prosthetics. The researchers, led by neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis, published their ...
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  • December 3, 2005

    Smith Shares Descartes Award for Artificial Material that Reverses Light's Properties

    Associate Professor David R. Smith of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and a team of European researchers have won a Descartes Research Prize for their work in developing left-handed metamaterials, artificial composites that reverse the usual properties of light. The awards ceremony was held at the Royal Society in London on December 1-2, 2005. Selected from a pool of 85 research teams from 22 countries, Smith shares this year's top European Union prize for research with ...
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  • November 19, 2005

    Polymer Gel Can Block Toxic Leakage Problem In Gene Therapy

    Note to editors: A high-resolution digital photo of Fan Yuan posed with visual evidence for his findings can be accessed at http://www.dukephoto.duke.edu/pages/Duke_News_Service/Yuan114205029.jpg. The evidence shows glowing viruses concentrated in the liver of a "control" animal not receiving the poloxamer mixture. In contrast, the viruses stayed in the tumor of an animal injected with the polymer. DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University biomedical engineers have devised a potentially patentable method to arrest toxic leakages of genetically engineered viruses ...
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  • November 11, 2005

    Duke Biomedical Engineering Receives Wallace Coulter Translational Partnership Award

    DURHAM, NC The Biomedical Department at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering is one of only nine departments selected nationally to receive a Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership Award in Biomedical Engineering. This Award will provide $580,000 each year for the next five years. Through this Award, the Foundation will form a working partnership with the Biomedical Engineering Department to promote, develop, and support translational research through such activities as funding promising ...
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  • November 11, 2005

    Duke Biomedical Engineering Receives Wallace Coulter Translational Partnership Award

    DURHAM, NC The Biomedical Department at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering is one of only nine departments selected nationally to receive a Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership Award in Biomedical Engineering. This Award will provide $580,000 each year for the next five years. Through this Award, the Foundation will form a working partnership with the Biomedical Engineering Department to promote, develop, and support translational research through such activities as funding promising ...
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  • November 5, 2005

    Duke Engineers Developing Ultrasound Devices Combining 3-D Imaging With Therapeutic Heating

    Durham, N.C. -- Duke University engineers are developing technology that may enable physicians to someday use high frequency ultrasound waves both to visualize the heart's interior in three dimensions and then selectively destroy heart tissue with heat to correct arrhythmias. "No one else has developed a way for ultrasound to combine therapy and imaging in a catheter, let alone 3-D imaging," said Stephen Smith, the biomedical engineering professor who heads the project at Duke's Pratt School ...
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  • November 2, 2005

    UV Measurement Tool To Aid Defense Against Infection Spread By Tap Water

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have developed a new way to measure microbes' exposure to ultraviolet light. The tool could bolster efforts to use UV light to improve the quality and safety of tap water in the U.S. The novel "microsphere dosimeter" technique is the first direct test of how much UV light microorganisms in fluids have been exposed to, said the researchers -- a critical step in validating the use ...
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  • October 13, 2005

    Engineers Build DNA "Nanotowers" with Enzyme Tools

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke engineers have added a new construction tool to their bio-nanofabrication toolbox. Using an enzyme called TdTase, engineers can vertically extend short DNA chains attached to nanometer-sized gold plates. This advance adds new capability to the field of bio-nanomanufacturing. "The process works like stacking Legos to make a tower and is an important step toward creating functional nanostructures out of biological materials," said Ashutosh Chilkoti, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke's Pratt ...
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  • September 17, 2005

    Designing 'Gene Circuits' that Control Cell Populations with Killer Genes

    Durham, N.C. -- Lingchong You's Duke University research team makes and programs circuits, although not the kind that work in electronics devices. His are "synthetic gene circuits" that can regulate cell populations with molecular signaling and intentional extermination. Such biocircuits have great potential for applications in biotechnology, computation, environmental engineering and medicine. For example, a "suicide" biocircuit could potentially be programmed into bacteria used to clean up pollution, making the microbes die off once their job ...
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  • September 16, 2005

    'Quasicrystal' Metal Computer Model Could Aid Ultra-Low-Friction Machine Parts

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University materials scientists have developed a computer model of how a "quasicrystal" metallic alloy interacts with a gas at various temperatures and pressures. Their advance could contribute to wider applications of quasicrystals for extremely low-friction machine parts, such as ball bearings and sliding parts. Quasicrystals, like normal crystals, consist of atoms that combine to form structures -- triangles, rectangles, pentagons, etc. -- that repeat in a pattern. However, unlike normal periodic crystals, ...
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  • September 15, 2005

    Unlocking the Mystery Behind Lightning's Puzzling Friend

    Written by Mike Bettwy, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.Giant red blobs, picket fences, upward branching carrots, and tentacled octopi - these are just a few of the phrases used to describe sprites - spectacular, eerie flashes of colored light high above the tops of powerful thunderstorms that can travel up to 50 miles high in the atmosphere. Sprites, so-named by a University of Alaska scientist inspired by the creatures in Shakespeare's "The Tempest," have been ...
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  • September 14, 2005

    Tropical Deforestation Affects Rainfall in the U.S. and Around the Globe

    by Mike Bettwy, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Today, scientists estimate that between one-third and one-half of our planet's land surfaces have been transformed by human development. Now, a new study is offering insight into the long-term impacts of these changes, particularly the effects of large-scale deforestation in tropical regions on the global climate. Researchers from Duke University, Durham, N.C., analyzed multiple years of data using the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies General Circulation Computer Model ...
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  • September 13, 2005

    News Tip: Pumping New Orleans Floodwater Into Lake Is Only A "Lesser Evil," Duke ...

    The pumping of New Orleans floodwaters into Lake Pontchartrain will create "long-term, harmful implications for the lake ecosystem and future human use of the area," warns Duke University environmental engineer Karl Linden. The possibility of even more serious harm may be avoided by extensive testing of waters in the industrial zone for toxic chemicals and developing a plan to treat those waters before disposal, he added. So far, there has been no sampling performed in any ...
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  • September 10, 2005

    Faculty Explore the Complexities of Katrina's Devastation

    Durham, N.C. -- Duke environmental experts and civil engineers have responded to Hurricane Katrina devastation with a broad range of insights. They are criticizing the failure to heed computer models that warned of disaster; pondering how to rebuild the city to avoid future catastrophe and examining the potential for ecological damage in the storm's aftermath. Pratt School of Engineering urban hydrologist Miguel Medina Jr. criticized the failure to heed the long history of engineering predictions and ...
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  • September 7, 2005

    News Tip: After Waters Recede, Next Step May Be To Raise Level of New Orleans

    Note to editors: Henry Petroski can be reached for additional comment at (919) 660-5203 or petroski@duke.edu. When civil engineers start planning for rebuilding New Orleans, there are few historical examples to guide them. Duke University engineering professor Henry Petroski says the closest example he can think of is the 1900 Galveston, Texas, hurricane which, like Katrina, left a city partially underwater. To protect Galveston from a recurrence, engineers found a bold and challenging solution that Petroski said ...
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  • September 1, 2005

    Environmental Engineering Gets Helicopter

    The Pratt School of Engineering has purchased a new Bell JetRanger helicopter to give the university and nation a new platform of research sensors to bridge a gap in airborne studies of natural and man-made environmental processes. The turbine-powered Bell 206B-3, painted in Duke blue with black stripes, arrived June 18 at the Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport, where it is housed with Duke Hospital's two Life Flight helicopters. Its first mission in July was to gather important ...
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  • September 1, 2005

    Environmental Engineering Gets Helicopter

    The Pratt School of Engineering has purchased a new Bell JetRanger helicopter to give the university and nation a new platform of research sensors to bridge a gap in airborne studies of natural and man-made environmental processes. The turbine-powered Bell 206B-3, painted in Duke blue with black stripes, arrived June 18 at the Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport, where it is housed with Duke Hospital's two Life Flight helicopters. Its first mission in July was to gather important ...
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  • September 1, 2005

    Expanding Application of Unique Ultrasound Technique

    Trahey and Nightingale Pratt engineers evaluating a unique Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) ultrasound are now expanding the technique's usage beyond previous applications to breast cancers, to include other kinds of tumors, and more tissues. The sound waves produced by ARFI ultrasound "push" on tissues to help physicians diagnose abnormalities such as tumors. "We have really advanced our technique," said Kathy Nightingale, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering who, together with her thesis adviser Gregg Trahey, pioneered ...
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  • September 1, 2005

    Expanding Application of Unique Ultrasound Technique

    Trahey and Nightingale Pratt engineers evaluating a unique Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) ultrasound are now expanding the technique's usage beyond previous applications to breast cancers, to include other kinds of tumors, and more tissues. The sound waves produced by ARFI ultrasound "push" on tissues to help physicians diagnose abnormalities such as tumors. "We have really advanced our technique," said Kathy Nightingale, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering who, together with her thesis adviser Gregg Trahey, pioneered ...
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  • August 11, 2005

    Self-Protecting Aerospace Structures One Step Closer to Reality

    Durham, NC - The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) awarded a five year, five million dollar grant to further research on microvascular autonomic composites to researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, UCLA, Duke University and Harvard Medical School. More commonly known as "self-healing plastic," this is an emerging field of science that incorporates automatic responses, like those found in biological entities, into material that are later used in the manufacturing of everything ...
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  • June 24, 2005

    Duke's Engineering School Buys Research Helicopter

    DURHAM, N.C. Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering has purchased a new Bell JetRanger helicopter to give the university and nation a new platform of research sensors to bridge a gap in airborne studies of natural and man-made environmental processes. The turbine-powered Bell 206B-3, painted in Duke blue with black stripes, arrived June 18, 2005, at the Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport, where it is hangared with Duke Hospital's two Life Flight helicopters. The engineering school ...
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  • June 21, 2005

    New Magnetic Herding Technique Proposed to Manipulate the Very Small

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Engineers have introduced a new magnetic shepherding approach for deftly moving or positioning the kinds of tiny floating objects found within organisms, in order to advance potential applications in fields ranging from medicine to nanotechnology. The authors of a new research article said their method avoids pitfalls of using tiny light beams, electric currents or even a competing magnetic approach to micromanipulate so-called "colloidal" objects. "Biology is composed primarily of colloidal materials, things larger ...
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  • June 17, 2005

    Arteries Bio-engineered from Elderly Cells

    DURHAM, N.C. Researchers from Duke University's Medical Center and Pratt School of Engineering have demonstrated that they can grow new human blood vessels from cells taken from patients who especially need such assistance older adults with cardiovascular disease. The researchers said the results of their latest experiments represent a "proof of principle" for an approach that could be clinically applicable within five to ten years. The first to benefit from such bio-engineered ...
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  • June 17, 2005

    Sorin wins NSF CAREER award

    Assistant Professor Daniel J. Sorin of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has won a National Science Foundation CAREER award of $400,000 over the next 5 years to develop new approaches to reliable computer architecture design. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is the federal agency's most prestigious award for early career teacher-scholars and supports integration of research and education. Sorin's project is called: "CAREER: Improving Multiprocessor Availability with Dynamic Verification and Autonomic Operation". Sorin and his team ...
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  • June 1, 2005

    Study Suggests Some Gamma Rays Emanate from Thunderstorms

    The most detailed analyses of links between some lightning events and mysterious gamma ray emissions that emanate from Earth's atmosphere suggests this gamma radiation shoots upward from starting points surprisingly low in thunderclouds. Counter-intuitively, the study led by Duke University engineers indicates these strong gamma outbursts seem to precede associated lightning discharges by a split second. "All of this comes as a huge surprise," said Steven Cummer, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke's ...
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  • June 1, 2005

    Study Suggests Some Gamma Rays Emanate from Thunderstorms

    The most detailed analyses of links between some lightning events and mysterious gamma ray emissions that emanate from Earth's atmosphere suggests this gamma radiation shoots upward from starting points surprisingly low in thunderclouds. Counter-intuitively, the study led by Duke University engineers indicates these strong gamma outbursts seem to precede associated lightning discharges by a split second. "All of this comes as a huge surprise," said Steven Cummer, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke's ...
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  • June 1, 2005

    Pratt Hosts International Symposium on Biointerface Science

    Duke's Pratt School of Engineering hosted the first International Symposium on Biointerface Science in New Bern on May 12-14. The conference focused on the challenges that researchers face in the silicon electronics industry when pairing soft, wet biological substances with hard, dry materials to create nanoscale "biohybrids." Biointerface science explores the interaction between biological and artificial materials at a molecular level. Such research crosses the traditional boundaries of materials and surface science, molecular and cell biology, engineering ...
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  • June 1, 2005

    Pratt Hosts International Symposium on Biointerface Science

    Duke's Pratt School of Engineering hosted the first International Symposium on Biointerface Science in New Bern on May 12-14. The conference focused on the challenges that researchers face in the silicon electronics industry when pairing soft, wet biological substances with hard, dry materials to create nanoscale "biohybrids." Biointerface science explores the interaction between biological and artificial materials at a molecular level. Such research crosses the traditional boundaries of materials and surface science, molecular and cell biology, engineering ...
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  • June 1, 2005

    Monkeys Adapt to Robot Arm as if it Were Their Own

    Monkeys that learn to use their brain signals to control a robotic arm are adapting to treat the arm as if it were their own appendage, Duke University Medical Center and biomedical engineers have found. The finding has profound implications both for understanding the extraordinary adaptability of the primate brain and for the potential clinical success of brain-operated devices to give the handicapped the ability to control their environment, the researchers said. Led by neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis ...
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  • June 1, 2005

    Monkeys Adapt to Robot Arm as if it Were Their Own

    Monkeys that learn to use their brain signals to control a robotic arm are adapting to treat the arm as if it were their own appendage, Duke University Medical Center and biomedical engineers have found. The finding has profound implications both for understanding the extraordinary adaptability of the primate brain and for the potential clinical success of brain-operated devices to give the handicapped the ability to control their environment, the researchers said. Led by neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis ...
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  • June 1, 2005

    Fifth Annual Symposium of the Fitzpatrick Center Held at Pratt

    More than 100 photonics researchers and educators attended the Fifth Annual Symposium of the Fitzpatrick Center for Photonics and Communication Systems at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering May 18-19. Focusing on "Global Perspectives on the Frontiers of Photonics," the meeting was sponsored by the United States Army Research Office, the National Science Council of Taiwan and the Office of Science and Technology of the United Kingdom. Among the attendees were Dr. Maw-Kuen Wu, chairman of the National ...
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  • June 1, 2005

    Fifth Annual Symposium of the Fitzpatrick Center Held at Pratt

    More than 100 photonics researchers and educators attended the Fifth Annual Symposium of the Fitzpatrick Center for Photonics and Communication Systems at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering May 18-19. Focusing on "Global Perspectives on the Frontiers of Photonics," the meeting was sponsored by the United States Army Research Office, the National Science Council of Taiwan and the Office of Science and Technology of the United Kingdom. Among the attendees were Dr. Maw-Kuen Wu, chairman of the National ...
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  • May 27, 2005

    Duke Engineers Develop New 3-D Cardiac Imaging Probe

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Biomedical engineers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have created a new three-dimensional ultrasound cardiac imaging probe. Inserted inside the esophagus, the probe creates a picture of the whole heart in the time it takes for current ultrasound technology to image a single heart cross section. The new probe has considerable potential not only for evaluating the condition of the heart, but also for use in guiding therapeutic treatment devices, the researchers ...
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  • May 11, 2005

    Monkeys Adapt Robot Arm as Their Own

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Monkeys that learn to use their brain signals to control a robotic arm are not just learning to manipulate an external device, Duke University Medical Center and biomedical engineers have found. Rather, their brain structures are adapting to treat the arm as if it were their own appendage. The finding has profound implications both for understanding the extraordinary adaptability of the primate brain and for the potential clinical success of brain-operated devices to ...
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  • May 10, 2005

    Duke Hosts Biointerface Science Conference in New Bern

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering is hosting the first International Symposium on Biointerface Science in New Bern May 12-14. The conference, which is open to the public, will focus on the challenges that researchers face in the silicon electronics industry when pairing soft, wet biological substances with hard, dry materials to create nanoscale "biohybrids." Biointerface science explores the interaction between biological and artificial materials at a molecular level. Such research crosses the traditional ...
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  • May 3, 2005

    Gamma Rays from Thunderstorms?

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University engineers have led the most detailed analyses of links between some lightning events and mysterious gamma ray emissions that emanate from earth's own atmosphere. Their study suggests that this gamma radiation fountains upward from starting points surprisingly low in thunderclouds. Counter-intuitively, these strong gamma outbursts also seem to precede associated lightning discharges by a split second. "All of this comes as a huge surprise," said Steven Cummer, an assistant professor of ...
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  • March 1, 2005

    soundSense: Where Movement and Data are Turned Into Music

    The children really get it, says Steve Feller. The adults walk in, hear the music, look around, stick their hands in their pockets and think about it. They act like adults. The children, however, realize that they control the music, the data and the lines appearing on the screens. "We had two kids come in yesterday, and immediately they started running around, making music, holding hands as they danced around," Feller said. "They figured out which ...
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  • March 1, 2005

    soundSense: Where Movement and Data are Turned Into Music

    The children really get it, says Steve Feller. The adults walk in, hear the music, look around, stick their hands in their pockets and think about it. They act like adults. The children, however, realize that they control the music, the data and the lines appearing on the screens. "We had two kids come in yesterday, and immediately they started running around, making music, holding hands as they danced around," Feller said. "They figured out which ...
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  • March 1, 2005

    'Oracle' Computer Could Hold All the Answers

    Instead of waiting weeks for computers to grind out solutions to complex problems, scientists may someday get answers instantly thanks to a new type of "oracle" computer that will have all the answers built in, Duke computer scientists and engineers predict. When a question is posed, the computer will provide the answer already paired with the question in the very structure of the computer's processing unit. "We call this kind of computer an oracle because, like ...
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  • March 1, 2005

    'Oracle' Computer Could Hold All the Answers

    Instead of waiting weeks for computers to grind out solutions to complex problems, scientists may someday get answers instantly thanks to a new type of "oracle" computer that will have all the answers built in, Duke computer scientists and engineers predict. When a question is posed, the computer will provide the answer already paired with the question in the very structure of the computer's processing unit. "We call this kind of computer an oracle because, like ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    Devices Combine 3-D Ultrasound with Heat Therapy

    Stephen Smith. Duke University engineers are developing technology that may enable physicians to someday use high frequency ultrasound waves both to visualize the heart's interior in three dimensions and then selectively destroy heart tissue with heat to correct arrhythmias. "No one else has developed a way for ultrasound to combine therapy and imaging in a catheter, let alone 3-D imaging," said Stephen Smith, the biomedical engineering professor who heads the project at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. Smith's ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    Devices Combine 3-D Ultrasound with Heat Therapy

    Stephen Smith. Duke University engineers are developing technology that may enable physicians to someday use high frequency ultrasound waves both to visualize the heart's interior in three dimensions and then selectively destroy heart tissue with heat to correct arrhythmias. "No one else has developed a way for ultrasound to combine therapy and imaging in a catheter, let alone 3-D imaging," said Stephen Smith, the biomedical engineering professor who heads the project at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. Smith's ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    First Annual Virtual Reality Jam a Success

    From left: Duke DiVE researchers Steve Feller, Rachael Brady, John Bower, and David Zielinski. Virtual reality experts from across the country descended on Duke Nov. 10-11 for the first Annual Virtual Reality Jam Session in the new Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE) facility located in the Fitzpatrick Center. The event offered the VR gurus a chance to trade computer applications and experiences with the immersive technology. During the two-day jam session, Rachael Brady, director of the Visualization ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    First Annual Virtual Reality Jam a Success

    From left: Duke DiVE researchers Steve Feller, Rachael Brady, John Bower, and David Zielinski. Virtual reality experts from across the country descended on Duke Nov. 10-11 for the first Annual Virtual Reality Jam Session in the new Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE) facility located in the Fitzpatrick Center. The event offered the VR gurus a chance to trade computer applications and experiences with the immersive technology. During the two-day jam session, Rachael Brady, director of the Visualization ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    Gel Blocks Toxic Leakage Problem In Gene Therapy

    Fan Yuan Duke University biomedical engineers have devised a potentially patentable method to arrest toxic leakages of genetically engineered viruses that have plagued attempts to use gene therapy against cancerous tumors. The problem has been that viruses carrying anti-tumor genes have tended to leak from tumors, proving toxic to other body tissues. The researchers have developed a biocompatible polymer that briefly changes from a liquid at 39 degrees Fahrenheit to a gel at body temperatures to block ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    Gel Blocks Toxic Leakage Problem In Gene Therapy

    Fan Yuan Duke University biomedical engineers have devised a potentially patentable method to arrest toxic leakages of genetically engineered viruses that have plagued attempts to use gene therapy against cancerous tumors. The problem has been that viruses carrying anti-tumor genes have tended to leak from tumors, proving toxic to other body tissues. The researchers have developed a biocompatible polymer that briefly changes from a liquid at 39 degrees Fahrenheit to a gel at body temperatures to block ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    Tool To Aid Defense Against Infected Tap Water

    Karl Linden Researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have developed a new way to measure microbes' exposure to ultraviolet light. The tool could bolster efforts to use UV light to improve the quality and safety of tap water in the U.S. The novel "microsphere dosimeter" technique is the first direct test of how much UV light microorganisms in fluids have been exposed to, said the researchers -- a critical step in validating the use of UV ...
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  • February 1, 2005

    Tool To Aid Defense Against Infected Tap Water

    Karl Linden Researchers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have developed a new way to measure microbes' exposure to ultraviolet light. The tool could bolster efforts to use UV light to improve the quality and safety of tap water in the U.S. The novel "microsphere dosimeter" technique is the first direct test of how much UV light microorganisms in fluids have been exposed to, said the researchers -- a critical step in validating the use of UV ...
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  • January 28, 2005

    Studies Suggest 'Bladder Pacemaker' for People With Spinal Cord Injury

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Biomedical engineers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that stimulating a specific nerve in the pelvis triggers the process that causes urine to begin flowing out from the bladder, refuting conventional thinking that "bladder emptying" requires signals from the brain. Their research, carried out with animals, could lead to a "bladder pacemaker" to restore bladder control for the more than 200,000 Americans living with spinal cord ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Duke Trustees Name CIEMAS for Fitzpatricks

    Duke's Board of Trustees has named the Pratt School of Engineering's new Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) for Duke alumni Michael and Patty Fitzpatrick. The Fitzpatrick Center naming, announced Dec. 3 by President Richard H. Brodhead, followed by two weeks the official dedication of the $97 million, 322,000 square-foot facility. At the end of the dedication program, Brodhead told a dinner audience that he planned to ask the trustees to consider the ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Duke Trustees Name CIEMAS for Fitzpatricks

    Duke's Board of Trustees has named the Pratt School of Engineering's new Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) for Duke alumni Michael and Patty Fitzpatrick. The Fitzpatrick Center naming, announced Dec. 3 by President Richard H. Brodhead, followed by two weeks the official dedication of the $97 million, 322,000 square-foot facility. At the end of the dedication program, Brodhead told a dinner audience that he planned to ask the trustees to consider the ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Research Suggests 'Bladder Pacemaker' for Spinal Cord Injury

    Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that stimulating a specific nerve in the pelvis triggers the process that causes urine to begin flowing out from the bladder, refuting conventional thinking that "bladder emptying" requires signals from the brain. Their research, carried out with animals, could lead to a "bladder pacemaker" to restore bladder control for the more than 200,000 Americans living with spinal cord injury (SCI) or disease-related ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    Research Suggests 'Bladder Pacemaker' for Spinal Cord Injury

    Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have demonstrated for the first time that stimulating a specific nerve in the pelvis triggers the process that causes urine to begin flowing out from the bladder, refuting conventional thinking that "bladder emptying" requires signals from the brain. Their research, carried out with animals, could lead to a "bladder pacemaker" to restore bladder control for the more than 200,000 Americans living with spinal cord injury (SCI) or disease-related ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    New Tool for Bio-Nanofabrication

    Duke engineers have added a new construction tool to their bio-nanofabrication toolbox. Using an enzyme called TdTase, engineers can vertically extend short DNA chains attached to nanometer-sized gold plates. This advance adds new capability to the field of bio-nanomanufacturing. "The process works like stacking Legos to make a tower and is an important step toward creating functional nanostructures out of biological materials," said Ashutosh Chilkoti, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The ...
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  • January 1, 2005

    New Tool for Bio-Nanofabrication

    Duke engineers have added a new construction tool to their bio-nanofabrication toolbox. Using an enzyme called TdTase, engineers can vertically extend short DNA chains attached to nanometer-sized gold plates. This advance adds new capability to the field of bio-nanomanufacturing. "The process works like stacking Legos to make a tower and is an important step toward creating functional nanostructures out of biological materials," said Ashutosh Chilkoti, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The ...
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  • December 1, 2004

    Study: Tropical Deforestation Affects Global Rainfall

    Roni Avissar Scientists estimate that between one-third and one-half of our planet's land surfaces have been transformed by human development. Now, a new study ifrom Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering is offering insight into the long-term impacts of these changes, particularly the effects of large-scale deforestation in tropical regions on the global climate. The Duke researchers, led by Professor Roni Avissar, chair of civil and environmental engineering at Pratt, analyzed years of data using the NASA ...
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  • December 1, 2004

    Study: Tropical Deforestation Affects Global Rainfall

    Roni Avissar Scientists estimate that between one-third and one-half of our planet's land surfaces have been transformed by human development. Now, a new study ifrom Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering is offering insight into the long-term impacts of these changes, particularly the effects of large-scale deforestation in tropical regions on the global climate. The Duke researchers, led by Professor Roni Avissar, chair of civil and environmental engineering at Pratt, analyzed years of data using the NASA ...
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  • December 1, 2004

    Pratt Engineer Works on Synthetic Gene Circuits

    Lingchong You's research team at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering makes and programs circuits, although not the kind that work in electronics devices. His are "synthetic gene circuits" that can regulate cell populations with molecular signaling and intentional extermination. Such biocircuits have great potential for applications in biotechnology, computation, environmental engineering and medicine. For example, a "suicide" biocircuit could potentially be programmed into bacteria used to clean up pollution, making the microbes die off once their ...
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  • December 1, 2004

    Pratt Engineer Works on Synthetic Gene Circuits

    Lingchong You's research team at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering makes and programs circuits, although not the kind that work in electronics devices. His are "synthetic gene circuits" that can regulate cell populations with molecular signaling and intentional extermination. Such biocircuits have great potential for applications in biotechnology, computation, environmental engineering and medicine. For example, a "suicide" biocircuit could potentially be programmed into bacteria used to clean up pollution, making the microbes die off once their ...
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  • November 20, 2004

    Two-Day Celebration Officially Opens CIEMAS

    DURHAM, N.C. Duke University dedicated its $97 million Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) Nov. 19 following a symposium that highlighted the teaching and research potential of engineers and scientists working together in a place that ignores traditional departmental boundaries. The four-building, 322,000-square-foot complex more than doubles the space of the Pratt School of Engineering. Construction began in May 2002 and the center opened in late August, on time and on ...
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  • November 16, 2004

    CIEMAS Building Adapts to 21st-Century Research Demands

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Imagine a puzzle whose pieces can change shape, and whose picture can even morph from one image to another. Now imagine that puzzle in three dimensions. Now imagine that puzzle formed of 19,000 cubic yards of concrete, 230 tons of structural steel, 1,700 tons of rebar, occupying nearly two acres and filled with more than 400 engineers and scientists. Just such a dynamic architectural "puzzle" is Duke University's new 322,000-square-foot Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, ...
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  • June 20, 2004

    New Thermodynamic Theory Will Help Engineers 'Go With The Flow'

    DURHAM, N.C. A scientific paper that provides tools based on a new principle of thermodynamics, called "Constructal Law," may enable the designers of automobiles, jet planes, air conditioners and other devices to take a more scientific approach to a development process now based on trial and error. Basically, Constructal Law provides such designers a method to minimize the resistance of flow throughout a system -- whether ocean currents or an air conditioner -- in ...
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  • June 1, 2004

    Mimicking Humpback Whale Flippers May Improve Airplane Wing Design

    Wind tunnel tests of scale-model humpback whale flippers have revealed that the scalloped, bumpy flipper is a more efficient wing design than is currently used by the aeronautics industry on airplanes. The tests show that bump-ridged flippers do not stall as quickly and produce more lift and less drag than comparably sized sleek flippers. View the online video news release: [high bandwidth] [low bandwidth]. The tests were reported by biomechanicist Frank Fish of West Chester University, Pa., ...
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  • June 1, 2004

    Mimicking Humpback Whale Flippers May Improve Airplane Wing Design

    Wind tunnel tests of scale-model humpback whale flippers have revealed that the scalloped, bumpy flipper is a more efficient wing design than is currently used by the aeronautics industry on airplanes. The tests show that bump-ridged flippers do not stall as quickly and produce more lift and less drag than comparably sized sleek flippers. View the online video news release: [high bandwidth] [low bandwidth]. The tests were reported by biomechanicist Frank Fish of West Chester University, Pa., ...
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  • May 11, 2004

    Mimicking Humpback Whale Flippers May Improve Airplane Wing Design

    Mechanical engineer Laurens Howle with scale model of humpback whale flipper used in wind tunnel. [high res download] Humpback whale breaching the surface. Note bumpy tubercules on leading edge of flipper. Photo credit: William W. Rossiter, Cetacean Society International. [high res download] streaming video (high bandwidth) streaming video (low bandwidth) Humpback whale footage courtesy of Nan Hauser, Center for Cetacean Research and Conservation DURHAM, N.C. -- Wind tunnel tests of scale-model humpback whale flippers have revealed that the scalloped, ...
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  • May 1, 2004

    Enzyme 'Ink' Shows Potential for Nanomanufacturing

    Duke University engineers have demonstrated that enzymes can be used to create nanoscale patterns on gold. Since many enzymes are already commercially available and well characterized, the potential for writing with enzyme 'ink' represents an important advance in nanomanufacturing. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation through a Nanotechnology Interdisciplinary Research Initiative (NIRT) grant. Enzymes are nature's catalysts -- proteins that stimulate chemical reactions in the body and are used in a wide range of ...
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  • May 1, 2004

    Enzyme 'Ink' Shows Potential for Nanomanufacturing

    Duke University engineers have demonstrated that enzymes can be used to create nanoscale patterns on gold. Since many enzymes are already commercially available and well characterized, the potential for writing with enzyme 'ink' represents an important advance in nanomanufacturing. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation through a Nanotechnology Interdisciplinary Research Initiative (NIRT) grant. Enzymes are nature's catalysts -- proteins that stimulate chemical reactions in the body and are used in a wide range of ...
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  • May 1, 2004

    Duke Engineers Probing Contortions of the Heart's Blood Vessels

    Duke biomedical engineers have received more than $2.2 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue their explorations of how the complex moving and flexing of blood vessels during a heartbeat might contribute to heart disease. They are combining clinical images of beating hearts and computer software to perform challenging visualization studies of the coronary arteries that that supply the heart with blood. Their goal is to determine whether there are certain motions that ...
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  • May 1, 2004

    Duke Engineers Probing Contortions of the Heart's Blood Vessels

    Duke biomedical engineers have received more than $2.2 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue their explorations of how the complex moving and flexing of blood vessels during a heartbeat might contribute to heart disease. They are combining clinical images of beating hearts and computer software to perform challenging visualization studies of the coronary arteries that that supply the heart with blood. Their goal is to determine whether there are certain motions that ...
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  • April 29, 2004

    Duke Engineers Probing Contortions of the Heart's Blood Vessels

    Duke biomedical engineers have received more than $2.2 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue their explorations of how the complex moving and flexing of blood vessels during a heartbeat might contribute to heart disease. They are combining clinical images of beating hearts and computer software to perform challenging visualization studies of the coronary arteries that that supply the heart with blood. Their goal is to determine whether there are certain motions that ...
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  • April 21, 2004

    Enzyme 'Ink' Shows Potential for Nanomanufacturing

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University engineers have demonstrated that enzymes can be used to create nanoscale patterns on gold. Since many enzymes are already commercially available and well characterized, the potential for writing with enzyme 'ink' represents an important advance in nanomanufacturing. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation through a Nanotechnology Interdisciplinary Research Initiative (NIRT) grant. Enzymes are nature's catalysts -- proteins that stimulate chemical reactions in the body and are used in a ...
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  • April 1, 2004

    Research Suggests New Way to Repair Cartilage Damage

    Duke biomedical engineers have developed a technique to use a natural polymer to fill in and protect cartilage wounds within joints, and to provide supportive scaffolding for new cartilage growth. Their advance offers a potential solution for a central problem in generating new cartilage -- providing a support for cartilage cells as they regenerate cartilage tissue. In tests on rabbits, Lori Setton, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, and her research ...
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  • April 1, 2004

    Research Suggests New Way to Repair Cartilage Damage

    Duke biomedical engineers have developed a technique to use a natural polymer to fill in and protect cartilage wounds within joints, and to provide supportive scaffolding for new cartilage growth. Their advance offers a potential solution for a central problem in generating new cartilage -- providing a support for cartilage cells as they regenerate cartilage tissue. In tests on rabbits, Lori Setton, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, and her research ...
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  • April 1, 2004

    Engineers Developing Technology for Brain-Machine Interfaces

    Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering are developing much of the basic technology behind Duke experiments aiming to enable primates and ultimately humans to operate machines exclusively with their brain signals. Their efforts include custom engineering of interface devices, programming of "neural net" computer systems and extensive computer analysis. "The issue here is really the challenge of developing technology and also understanding how the brain works," said Craig Henriquez, the Pratt School's W.H. Gardner ...
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  • April 1, 2004

    Engineers Developing Technology for Brain-Machine Interfaces

    Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering are developing much of the basic technology behind Duke experiments aiming to enable primates and ultimately humans to operate machines exclusively with their brain signals. Their efforts include custom engineering of interface devices, programming of "neural net" computer systems and extensive computer analysis. "The issue here is really the challenge of developing technology and also understanding how the brain works," said Craig Henriquez, the Pratt School's W.H. Gardner ...
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  • April 1, 2004

    Pratt Engineers Fabricate 'Smart Nanostructures'

    ANAHEIM, CALIF. - Engineers from Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have described progress building so-called "smart nanostructures," including billionths-of-a-meter-scale "nanobrushes" that can selectively and reversibly sprout from surfaces in response to changes in temperature or solvent chemistry. In talks delivered during the March 28-April 1 American Chemical Society annual meeting in Anaheim, researchers also told how they are using an atomic force microscope to create reprogrammable "nanopatterns" of large biologically-based molecules that could potentially serve ...
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  • April 1, 2004

    Pratt Engineers Fabricate 'Smart Nanostructures'

    ANAHEIM, CALIF. - Engineers from Duke's Pratt School of Engineering have described progress building so-called "smart nanostructures," including billionths-of-a-meter-scale "nanobrushes" that can selectively and reversibly sprout from surfaces in response to changes in temperature or solvent chemistry. In talks delivered during the March 28-April 1 American Chemical Society annual meeting in Anaheim, researchers also told how they are using an atomic force microscope to create reprogrammable "nanopatterns" of large biologically-based molecules that could potentially serve ...
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  • April 1, 2004

    Curious about CIEMAS?

    Pratt's construction firm, Skanska, has agreed to conduct regularly scheduled tours of CIEMAS. Guided tours will be offered on Mondays and Wednesdays, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Tour size is limited to 15 people. Interested individuals must register by contacting Ms. Glenda Hester at 660-5359, or glenda.hester@duke.edu. Glenda will contact you with an assigned time and date for a tour. In compliance with safety regulations for a construction site, participants need to wear long pants and closed ...
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  • April 1, 2004

    Curious about CIEMAS?

    Pratt's construction firm, Skanska, has agreed to conduct regularly scheduled tours of CIEMAS. Guided tours will be offered on Mondays and Wednesdays, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Tour size is limited to 15 people. Interested individuals must register by contacting Ms. Glenda Hester at 660-5359, or glenda.hester@duke.edu. Glenda will contact you with an assigned time and date for a tour. In compliance with safety regulations for a construction site, participants need to wear long pants and closed ...
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  • March 31, 2004

    Duke Engineers Fabricating Polymer 'Nanobrushes' and Other 'Smart' Molecule-Sized Structures

    ANAHEIM, CALIF. -- Engineers from Duke University have described progress building so-called "smart nanostructures," including billionths-of-a-meter-scale "nanobrushes" that can selectively and reversibly sprout from surfaces in response to changes in temperature or solvent chemistry. In talks delivered during the March 28-April 1 at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in Anaheim, researchers from Duke's Pratt School of Engineering also told how they are using an atomic force microscope to create reprogrammable "nanopatterns" of large biologically-based molecules ...
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  • March 25, 2004

    Duke Summer Seminar: Topics In Modern Optics Set For July 26-28

    The Fitzpatrick Center for Photonics and Communications Systems at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering will hold a seminar titled "Topics in Modern Optics" for industrial and academic technology managers and researchers July 26-28. The second annual summer seminar in photonics will focus on the current research trends in photonics, the melding of light with electronics to manage and transmit information. "In a rapidly changing field like modern optics and photonics it is difficult to formulate a perspective ...
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  • March 25, 2004

    Duke Engineers Developing Technology Underlying Brain-Machine Interfaces

    Biomedical engineers at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering are developing much of the basic technology behind Duke experiments aiming to enable primates and ultimately humans to operate machines exclusively with their brain signals. Their efforts include custom engineering of interface devices, programming of "neural net" computer systems and extensive computer analysis. "The issue here is really the challenge of developing technology and also understanding how the brain works," said Craig Henriquez, the Pratt School's W.H. Gardner ...
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  • March 9, 2004

    Research Suggests New Way to Repair Cartilage Damage

    DURHAM, N.C. Duke biomedical engineers have developed a technique to use a natural polymer to fill in and protect cartilage wounds within joints, and to provide supportive scaffolding for new cartilage growth. Their advance offers a potential solution for a central problem in generating new cartilage -- providing a support for cartilage cells as they regenerate cartilage tissue. In tests on rabbits, Lori Setton, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke's Pratt School of ...
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  • February 25, 2004

    Two Duke Engineering Professors Win Career Awards

    Assistant professors Andrew Schuler and Adam P. Wax at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have received Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation. Each award is expected to total $400,000 over five years. "The CAREER award is NSF's most prestigious honor for junior faculty members," the federal research agency said. "The CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic ...
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  • February 1, 2004

    CIEMAS Building Adapts to 21st-Century Research Demands

    Imagine a puzzle whose pieces can change shape, and whose picture can even morph from one image to another. Now imagine that puzzle in three dimensions. Now imagine that puzzle formed of 19,000 cubic yards of concrete, 230 tons of structural steel, 1,700 tons of rebar, occupying nearly two acres and filled with more than 400 engineers and scientists. Just such a dynamic architectural "puzzle" is Duke University's new 322,000-square-foot Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied ...
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  • February 1, 2004

    CIEMAS Building Adapts to 21st-Century Research Demands

    Imagine a puzzle whose pieces can change shape, and whose picture can even morph from one image to another. Now imagine that puzzle in three dimensions. Now imagine that puzzle formed of 19,000 cubic yards of concrete, 230 tons of structural steel, 1,700 tons of rebar, occupying nearly two acres and filled with more than 400 engineers and scientists. Just such a dynamic architectural "puzzle" is Duke University's new 322,000-square-foot Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied ...
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  • February 1, 2004

    Pratt Acquires New Research Helicopter

    Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has acquired a new turbine-powered helicopter that will give the university and nation a new platform of research sensors to bridge a gap in airborne studies of natural and man-made atmospheric processes. Visit URL: hop.pratt.duke.edu Professor Roni Avissar, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, accepted the Bell 206 Jet Ranger at the Bell Helicopter plant in Fort Worth, Texas, Nov. 24, and flew it to Heli-Dyne Systems Inc., ...
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  • February 1, 2004

    Pratt Acquires New Research Helicopter

    Duke's Pratt School of Engineering has acquired a new turbine-powered helicopter that will give the university and nation a new platform of research sensors to bridge a gap in airborne studies of natural and man-made atmospheric processes. Visit URL: hop.pratt.duke.edu Professor Roni Avissar, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, accepted the Bell 206 Jet Ranger at the Bell Helicopter plant in Fort Worth, Texas, Nov. 24, and flew it to Heli-Dyne Systems Inc., ...
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  • January 13, 2004

    Duke, GM to Jointly Explore Fuel-Cell Technology Issues

    Duke University and the General Motors Corp. (GM) have reached an agreement on a multi-year, interdisciplinary teaching and research project aimed at furthering worldwide efforts to develop hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by 2010, the university and company announced Jan. 13. Duke's Fuqua School of Business is spearheading the project, with significant participation from the Pratt School of Engineering and the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. The project formally begins Wednesday, Jan. 14, with the launch of a ...
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  • January 13, 2004

    Duke, GM to Jointly Explore Fuel-Cell Technology Issues

    Duke University and the General Motors Corp. (GM) have reached an agreement on a multi-year, interdisciplinary teaching and research project aimed at furthering worldwide efforts to develop hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by 2010, the university and company announced Jan. 13. Duke's Fuqua School of Business is spearheading the project, with significant participation from the Pratt School of Engineering and the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. The project formally begins Wednesday, Jan. 14, with the launch of a ...
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  • January 1, 2004

    Duke to Celebrate CIEMAS Opening Nov. 18-19

    Duke University officials and professors, key donors and leaders of industry will celebrate the grand opening of the Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) with a symposium Nov. 18-19 spotlighting cross-discipline research for the nation and society. CIEMAS is a four-building, 322,000-square-foot complex that more than doubles the teaching and research space of the Pratt School of Engineering. It brings together scientists and educators from across scientific boundaries. The $97 million center opened Aug. ...
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  • January 1, 2004

    Duke to Celebrate CIEMAS Opening Nov. 18-19

    Duke University officials and professors, key donors and leaders of industry will celebrate the grand opening of the Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) with a symposium Nov. 18-19 spotlighting cross-discipline research for the nation and society. CIEMAS is a four-building, 322,000-square-foot complex that more than doubles the teaching and research space of the Pratt School of Engineering. It brings together scientists and educators from across scientific boundaries. The $97 million center opened Aug. ...
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  • December 4, 2003

    New Study to Improve Understanding of Osteoarthritis

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Using a three-pronged approach, basic scientists and clinicians at Duke University hope not only to better understand the underlying mechanisms of osteoarthritis, but to develop strategies to help sufferers cope with this debilitating disorder. The need is great, the researchers argue, since there are more than 40 million Americans with the disorder, which is known as the "wear-and-tear" form of arthritis. The other major form, rheumatoid arthritis, occurs when the body's immune system ...
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  • November 18, 2003

    MIT and Duke team mines for new materials with a computer

    A computational technique used to predict everything from books that a given customer might like to the function of an unknown protein is now being applied by MIT engineers and a colleague at Duke University to the search for new materials. The team's ultimate goal: a public online database that could aid the design of materials for almost any application, from nanostructure computer components to ultralight, high-strength alloys for airplanes. The technique, known as data mining, uses ...
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  • November 15, 2003

    New Computer Cluster Farm to Help Duke Research

    Duke's computing experts hope to help faculty campus-wide raise a bumper crop of research using a new "cluster farm" approach to high-end computing. The farm, a growing collection of high-powered processors racked up in the North Building, will give Duke researchers the dedicated, 24/7 computing power they need -- without the headaches of storage and administration. Developed by the Center for Computational Science, Engineering and Medicine (CSEM) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT), the cluster ...
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  • November 1, 2003

    New Training Grant Combines Engineering and Life Sciences

    Engineers and life scientists at Duke University believe that by combining the strengths and insights of their specialties, they can train researchers uniquely qualified to manipulate molecules, cells and tissues to treat human diseases and disorders. "In recent years, there has been a surge in the application of biotechnology to clinical medicine through such fields as tissue engineering, drug delivery, biomaterials, biosenors, genomics and proteomics," said Duke's Farshid Guilak, Ph.D. "At Duke, we have created a ...
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  • October 28, 2003

    Faculty Profile: Nan Jokerst -- Engineering on Smaller Scales

    By Monte Basgall Fresh from 14 successful years at Georgia Institute of Technology, during which her research drew praise and her teaching drew national recognition, Nan Marie Jokerst has come to the Pratt School of Engineering to advance her research and teaching even more dramatically. In fact, the new professor of electrical engineering and computer science said she arrived at Duke a year early to prepare facilities for what she believes will be major research achievements. She and ...
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  • October 14, 2003

    Monkeys Control Robot Arm Using Brain Signals As If It Were Their Own

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Researchers at Duke University have taught rhesus monkeys to consciously control the movement of a robot arm in real time, using only signals from their brains and visual feedback on a video screen. The scientists said that the animals appeared to operate the robot arm as if it were their own limb. The scientists and engineers said their achievement represents an important step toward technology that could enable paralyzed people to control "neuroprosthetic" ...
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  • September 23, 2003

    Duke to Partner with Taiwanese University in Photonics Research and Education

    DURHAM, N.C. Duke University and the National Chiao Tung University of Taiwan formally agreed to establish new collaborative education and research programs in photonics and electro-optics, in a ceremony held Tuesday at the Duke campus. Dr. Chun-Yun Chang, president of the National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), and Duke President Nannerl O. Keohane signed the agreement after touring the Duke campus and the future home of Duke's Fitzpatrick Center for Photonics and Communication Systems. Duke's Pratt ...
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  • September 12, 2003

    New Solution for Toxicity Problems in Gene Therapy

    DURHAM, N.C. - A Duke research collaboration has identified a likely route for "leakage" of therapeutic gene-bearing viruses out of tumors in experimental anti-cancer gene therapy experiments in laboratory animals. The group also found this toxic leakage can be avoided by using a chemical extracted from common brown algae. Their work was described in a presentation Monday, September 8, 2003, at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in New York, as well as in a research ...
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  • September 1, 2003

    Special Drug Delivery

    By Dennis Meredith, for DukeMed Magazine A cloud of gelatinous capsules swirls into the bloodstream from the tip of a comparatively colossal hypodermic needle. At a thousandth of the diameter of a human hair, the capsules spreading through the circulation are nearly a hundred times smaller than the blood cells that stream alongside them. Yet tiny as they are, these submicroscopic capsules bear the stamp of human design their surfaces are a waxy patchwork not found ...
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  • September 1, 2003

    Special Drug Delivery

    By Dennis Meredith, for DukeMed Magazine A cloud of gelatinous capsules swirls into the bloodstream from the tip of a comparatively colossal hypodermic needle. At a thousandth of the diameter of a human hair, the capsules spreading through the circulation are nearly a hundred times smaller than the blood cells that stream alongside them. Yet tiny as they are, these submicroscopic capsules bear the stamp of human design their surfaces are a waxy patchwork not found ...
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  • August 21, 2003

    Duke Engineer Receives Humboldt Fellowship

    Krishnendu Chakrabarty, an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University, has received a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He will spend the spring semester of 2004 in Germany. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation grants research fellowships and research awards to highly qualified scholars and scientists of all nationalities not resident in Germany, enabling them to undertake periods of research in Germany, as well as research fellowships to ...
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  • June 16, 2003

    Special Delivery

    (From DukeMed Magazine) By Dennis Meredith A cloud of gelatinous capsules swirls into the bloodstream from the tip of a comparatively colossal hypodermic needle. At a thousandth of the diameter of a human hair, the capsules spreading through the circulation are nearly a hundred times smaller than the blood cells that stream alongside them. Yet tiny as they are, these submicroscopic capsules bear the stamp of human design their surfaces are a waxy patchwork not found in ...
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  • June 1, 2003

    Engineers Converting Atomic Force Microscopes into Molecular 'Milling Machines'

    Pratt School of Engineering researchers are at the vanguard of efforts to remake the "atomic force microscope" (AFM), an instrument typically used to obtain molecular scale images, into a tool to build precisely aligned structures at those tiny dimensions. "I think this will be a very good tool for research in the laboratory because we should have very good control and get results relatively easily," said Stefan Zauscher, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science who brought his expertise in ...
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  • June 1, 2003

    Engineers Converting Atomic Force Microscopes into Molecular 'Milling Machines'

    Pratt School of Engineering researchers are at the vanguard of efforts to remake the "atomic force microscope" (AFM), an instrument typically used to obtain molecular scale images, into a tool to build precisely aligned structures at those tiny dimensions. "I think this will be a very good tool for research in the laboratory because we should have very good control and get results relatively easily," said Stefan Zauscher, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science who brought his expertise in ...
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  • May 19, 2003

    Duke Engineers Converting Atomic Force Microscopes into Molecular 'Milling Machines'

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Pratt School of Engineering researchers are at the vanguard of efforts to remake the "atomic force microscope" (AFM), an instrument typically used to obtain molecular scale images, into a tool to build precisely aligned structures at those tiny dimensions. "I think this will be a very good tool for research in the laboratory because we should have very good control and get results relatively easily," said Stefan Zauscher, an assistant professor of mechanical ...
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  • May 1, 2003

    Engineers Design New Optical Microprobe to Detect Organ Abnormalities

    Photonics and ultrasound engineering researchers from Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and George Washington University have collaborated to design an optical scanner miniaturized enough to be inserted into the body, where its light beams could someday detect abnormalities hidden in the walls of the colon, bladder or esophagus. The experimental device, called an "electrostatic micromachine scanning mirror for optical coherence tomography," is described in an article published in the April 15 issue of the research journal ...
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  • May 1, 2003

    Engineers Design New Optical Microprobe to Detect Organ Abnormalities

    Photonics and ultrasound engineering researchers from Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and George Washington University have collaborated to design an optical scanner miniaturized enough to be inserted into the body, where its light beams could someday detect abnormalities hidden in the walls of the colon, bladder or esophagus. The experimental device, called an "electrostatic micromachine scanning mirror for optical coherence tomography," is described in an article published in the April 15 issue of the research journal ...
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  • May 1, 2003

    Pratt Fellow examines genetic manipulation

    Imagine conducting innovative and potentially life saving biomedical research all before your 22nd birthday. Jamie Bergen will tell you that such dreams are possible through the Pratt Fellows program. Bergen is one of two dozen undergraduates selected annually to receive the school's distinguished Pratt Fellowship, which allows students to receive course credit and a summer stipend to conduct research under the direct supervision of faculty members. Fellows are selected their junior year based upon research interests, academic record, intellectual ability and maturity. Bergen's ...
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  • May 1, 2003

    Pratt Fellow examines genetic manipulation

    Imagine conducting innovative and potentially life saving biomedical research all before your 22nd birthday. Jamie Bergen will tell you that such dreams are possible through the Pratt Fellows program. Bergen is one of two dozen undergraduates selected annually to receive the school's distinguished Pratt Fellowship, which allows students to receive course credit and a summer stipend to conduct research under the direct supervision of faculty members. Fellows are selected their junior year based upon research interests, academic record, intellectual ability and maturity. Bergen's ...
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  • April 17, 2003

    Engineers Design New Optical Microprobe to Detect Subsurface Organ Abnormalities

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Photonics and ultrasound engineering researchers from Duke University and The George Washington University have collaborated to design an optical scanner miniaturized enough to be inserted into the body, where its light beams could someday detect abnormalities hidden in the walls of the colon, bladder or esophagus. The experimental device, called an "electrostatic micromachine scanning mirror for optical coherence tomography," is described in an article published in the April 15, 2003, issue of the ...
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  • April 1, 2003

    SITAR Project Develops New Methods to Protect Computers

    Triangle software researchers will complete in June a three-year experimental project on a new kind of security software called an intrusion-tolerant system developed in part by electrical and computer engineering professor Kishor Trivedi at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The researchers from Duke and the Advanced Network Research Group at MCNC in Research Triangle Park say continuing security breaches, whether attacks by malicious software or theft of confidential information, demonstrate the need for better computer security. ...
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  • April 1, 2003

    SITAR Project Develops New Methods to Protect Computers

    Triangle software researchers will complete in June a three-year experimental project on a new kind of security software called an intrusion-tolerant system developed in part by electrical and computer engineering professor Kishor Trivedi at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The researchers from Duke and the Advanced Network Research Group at MCNC in Research Triangle Park say continuing security breaches, whether attacks by malicious software or theft of confidential information, demonstrate the need for better computer security. ...
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  • April 1, 2003

    Chandran Family Giving $1 Million to Pratt School of Engineering

    Clarence Chandran and his late wife Beverley are giving Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering $1 million in separate gifts for the new Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) and for research in brain tumor imaging. "These gifts are a very significant contribution to our effort to make Pratt a global leader in engineering research and education," said Duke President Nannerl O. Keohane in announcing the gifts March 24. "We are deeply grateful to Clarence and Beverley for their ...
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  • April 1, 2003

    Chandran Family Giving $1 Million to Pratt School of Engineering

    Clarence Chandran and his late wife Beverley are giving Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering $1 million in separate gifts for the new Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) and for research in brain tumor imaging. "These gifts are a very significant contribution to our effort to make Pratt a global leader in engineering research and education," said Duke President Nannerl O. Keohane in announcing the gifts March 24. "We are deeply grateful to Clarence and Beverley for their ...
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  • April 1, 2003

    Human Testing Starts of Engineered Anti-Cancer Drug Carrier

    The first phase of clinical testing has begun of a heat-triggered, sub-microscopic drug carrier invented by Professor David Needham of the Pratt Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and developed in collaboration with Dr. Mark Dewhirst in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The drug carriers are liposomes that are engineered to release the agents they carry at the cancer site when tumor temperatures are raised to 41 degrees Celsius. The clinical trial just getting underway is using the special liposomes to carry ...
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  • April 1, 2003

    Human Testing Starts of Engineered Anti-Cancer Drug Carrier

    The first phase of clinical testing has begun of a heat-triggered, sub-microscopic drug carrier invented by Professor David Needham of the Pratt Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and developed in collaboration with Dr. Mark Dewhirst in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The drug carriers are liposomes that are engineered to release the agents they carry at the cancer site when tumor temperatures are raised to 41 degrees Celsius. The clinical trial just getting underway is using the special liposomes to carry ...
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  • March 22, 2003

    SITAR Project Develops New Methods to Protect Computers

    Triangle software researchers will complete in June a three-year experimental project on a new kind of security software called an intrusion-tolerant system developed in part by electrical and computer engineering professor Kishor Trivedi at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The researchers from Duke and the Advanced Network Research Group at MCNC in Research Triangle Park say continuing security breaches, whether attacks by malicious software or theft of confidential information, demonstrate the need for better computer security. ...
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  • March 1, 2003

    Pratt Panel Looks at Post-Columbia Future of Spaceflight

    Three Duke observers of America's space program looked into the future following the shuttle Columbia tragedy and came up with different views Feb. 20 at a special panel discussion at the Pratt School of Engineering. Alex Roland, professor of history and a former NASA historian, said the International Space Station currently in orbit with three men aboard should be mothballed and NASA should focus on building a much safer, less expensive rocket ship than the space shuttle. Earl Dowell, J.A. Jones Professor ...
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  • March 1, 2003

    Pratt Panel Looks at Post-Columbia Future of Spaceflight

    Three Duke observers of America's space program looked into the future following the shuttle Columbia tragedy and came up with different views Feb. 20 at a special panel discussion at the Pratt School of Engineering. Alex Roland, professor of history and a former NASA historian, said the International Space Station currently in orbit with three men aboard should be mothballed and NASA should focus on building a much safer, less expensive rocket ship than the space shuttle. Earl Dowell, J.A. Jones Professor ...
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  • February 1, 2003

    MIT and Duke Team Mines for New Materials With a Computer

    A computational technique used to predict everything from books that a given customer might like to the function of an unknown protein is now being applied by MIT engineers and a colleague at Duke University to the search for new materials. The team's ultimate goal: a public online database that could aid the design of materials for almost any application, from nanostructure computer components to ultralight, high-strength alloys for airplanes. The technique, known as data mining, uses ...
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  • February 1, 2003

    MIT and Duke Team Mines for New Materials With a Computer

    A computational technique used to predict everything from books that a given customer might like to the function of an unknown protein is now being applied by MIT engineers and a colleague at Duke University to the search for new materials. The team's ultimate goal: a public online database that could aid the design of materials for almost any application, from nanostructure computer components to ultralight, high-strength alloys for airplanes. The technique, known as data mining, uses ...
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  • February 1, 2003

    Computer Cluster Farm to Help Duke

    Duke's computing experts hope to help faculty campus-wide raise a bumper crop of research using a new "cluster farm" approach to high-end computing. The farm, a growing collection of high-powered processors racked up in the North Building, will give Duke researchers the dedicated, 24/7 computing power they need -- without the headaches of storage and administration. Developed by the Center for Computational Science, Engineering and Medicine (CSEM) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT), the cluster ...
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  • February 1, 2003

    Computer Cluster Farm to Help Duke

    Duke's computing experts hope to help faculty campus-wide raise a bumper crop of research using a new "cluster farm" approach to high-end computing. The farm, a growing collection of high-powered processors racked up in the North Building, will give Duke researchers the dedicated, 24/7 computing power they need -- without the headaches of storage and administration. Developed by the Center for Computational Science, Engineering and Medicine (CSEM) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT), the cluster ...
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  • February 1, 2003

    Self-assembling Circuits Using DNA May Represent Next Computer Breakthrough

    The same DNA that carries genetic information may assemble electronic components when they become so minuscule that current manufacturing techniques no longer work, said researchers working on a $1.2 million project funded by the National Science Foundation to develop processes for submicroscopic DNA assembly. Their aim is to use the innate self-assembling properties of DNA to transport submicroscopic carbon "nanotubes" into place to function as transistors and connectors in computer circuitry. "Reducing the size of features ...
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  • February 1, 2003

    Self-assembling Circuits Using DNA May Represent Next Computer Breakthrough

    The same DNA that carries genetic information may assemble electronic components when they become so minuscule that current manufacturing techniques no longer work, said researchers working on a $1.2 million project funded by the National Science Foundation to develop processes for submicroscopic DNA assembly. Their aim is to use the innate self-assembling properties of DNA to transport submicroscopic carbon "nanotubes" into place to function as transistors and connectors in computer circuitry. "Reducing the size of features ...
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  • January 1, 2003

    Monkeys Control Robot Arm Using Brain Signals

    Researchers at Duke University have taught rhesus monkeys to consciously control the movement of a robot arm in real time, using only signals from their brains and visual feedback on a video screen. The scientists said that the animals appeared to operate the robot arm as if it were their own limb. The scientists and engineers said their achievement represents an important step toward technology that could enable paralyzed people to control "neuroprosthetic" limbs, and even ...
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  • January 1, 2003

    Monkeys Control Robot Arm Using Brain Signals

    Researchers at Duke University have taught rhesus monkeys to consciously control the movement of a robot arm in real time, using only signals from their brains and visual feedback on a video screen. The scientists said that the animals appeared to operate the robot arm as if it were their own limb. The scientists and engineers said their achievement represents an important step toward technology that could enable paralyzed people to control "neuroprosthetic" limbs, and even ...
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  • January 1, 2003

    Tissue Engineering at Pratt

    By Anu Kotha (Kotha is a freshman at Pratt) Within the next 10 years, more than 70 million people are going to join the ranks of seniors. As they age, they will face several medical problems. One such problem concerns joints. The articular cartilage that allows bones to smoothly move over each other wears down with time. Unlike most tissues in the body, articular cartilage cannot heal itself. Due to the loss of this cartilage, bones rub ...
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  • January 1, 2003

    Tissue Engineering at Pratt

    By Anu Kotha (Kotha is a freshman at Pratt) Within the next 10 years, more than 70 million people are going to join the ranks of seniors. As they age, they will face several medical problems. One such problem concerns joints. The articular cartilage that allows bones to smoothly move over each other wears down with time. Unlike most tissues in the body, articular cartilage cannot heal itself. Due to the loss of this cartilage, bones rub ...
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  • December 7, 2002

    Researchers Wiring Together PCs for Supercomputer-Like Performance

    Besides saving money, users of these collectives of high end but off-the-shelf PCs -- often called "Beowulf clusters - can avoid the negative side of relying on supercomputing centers from Research Triangle Park to San Diego. "In the past we used a supercomputer," said Roni Avissar, the chairman of the Pratt School of Engineering's civil and environmental engineering department. "The problem is you had to share the supercomputer with a lot of other people." He now uses ...
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  • December 1, 2002

    Researchers Find Possible Causes for Toxics Leaking from Tumors

    A Duke research collaboration has identified a likely route for "leakage" of therapeutic gene-bearing viruses out of tumors in experimental anti-cancer gene therapy experiments in laboratory animals. The group also found this toxic leakage can be avoided by using a chemical extracted from common brown algae. Their work was described in a presentation Sept. 11 at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in New York, as well as in a research paper accepted for publication in ...
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  • December 1, 2002

    Researchers Find Possible Causes for Toxics Leaking from Tumors

    A Duke research collaboration has identified a likely route for "leakage" of therapeutic gene-bearing viruses out of tumors in experimental anti-cancer gene therapy experiments in laboratory animals. The group also found this toxic leakage can be avoided by using a chemical extracted from common brown algae. Their work was described in a presentation Sept. 11 at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in New York, as well as in a research paper accepted for publication in ...
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  • November 19, 2002

    Two Grants to Aid Genomic Technology and Biophotonics at Pratt School of Engineering

    DURHAM, N.C. -- The Whitaker Foundation has awarded two grants totaling nearly $2 million to Duke's Pratt School of Engineering to accelerate promising research and teaching programs in genomic technology and biomolecular modeling, and in biophotonics, the merger of optical technologies with medicine. Both "Special Opportunity Awards" went to the school's Department of Biomedical Engineering. Together, they will fund four new faculty members, support new Ph.D. fellowships, outfit two new laboratories and help develop new undergraduate ...
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  • October 25, 2002

    Study Suggests Amazon Deforestation Could Affect Climate in U.S.

    DURHAM, N.C. -- New mathematical simulations of climate behavior by Duke University researchers indicate that deforestation in the Amazon can cause a reduction of rainfall in the Midwestern United States and the Dakotas in the summer, when precipitation is most needed for agriculture. "What this suggests is that if you mess up the planet at one point, the impact could have far-reaching effects," said Roni Avissar, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at ...
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  • September 18, 2002

    Duke Engineers Creating 'More Refined' Global Climate Model

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Frustrated by the limitations of present numerical models that simulate how Earth's climate will be altered by factors such as pollution and landscape modification, Duke University engineers are creating a new model incorporating previously-missing regional and local processes. "The model we are developing is much more refined," said the project's leader, Roni Avissar, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. Unlike previous designs now used ...
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  • September 16, 2002

    One-Upping Nature in a Quest for New Materials

    By Monte Basgall, Office of News and Communications Taking their inspiration from the "soft and wet" natural world, engineers and scientists are designing new tools and devices that aim at practical applications. The goal is to "reverse engineer" scores of millions of years of natural evolution. Over this span, molecules have assembled themselves into cells and cells have organized into plants, animals and the complex biomechanisms necessary to support life. Now, in a promising new initiative, interdisciplinary ...
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  • September 1, 2002

    DARPA To Support Brain-Machine Research

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Devices including "neuroprosthetic" limbs for paralyzed people and "neurorobots" controlled by brain signals from human operators could be the ultimate applications of brain-machine interface technologies developed under a $26 million contract to Duke sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The DARPA support will help launch Duke's Center for Neuroengineering, co-directed by Miguel Nicolelis, professor of neurobiology, and Craig Henriquez, the W.H. Gardner Jr. Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering. The center's scientists and engineers will seek ...
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  • September 1, 2002

    DARPA To Support Brain-Machine Research

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Devices including "neuroprosthetic" limbs for paralyzed people and "neurorobots" controlled by brain signals from human operators could be the ultimate applications of brain-machine interface technologies developed under a $26 million contract to Duke sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The DARPA support will help launch Duke's Center for Neuroengineering, co-directed by Miguel Nicolelis, professor of neurobiology, and Craig Henriquez, the W.H. Gardner Jr. Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering. The center's scientists and engineers will seek ...
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  • August 16, 2002

    DARPA to Support Development of Human Brain-Machine Interfaces

    DURHAM, N.C. -- Devices including "neuroprosthetic" limbs for paralyzed people and "neurorobots" controlled by brain signals from human operators could be the ultimate applications of brain-machine interface technologies developed under a $26 million contract to Duke University sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The contract is part of DARPA's Brain-Machine Interfaces Program (http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/sp/bmi.htm), which seeks to develop new technologies for augmenting human performance by accessing the brain in real time and integrating the ...
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  • April 24, 2002

    Duke Leads Defense Department-Funded Studies to Detect Hidden Targets With Robotic Sensors

    DURHAM, N.C. -- A vision of futuristic robotic aircraft and land vehicles that can sense and close in on targets hidden in trees, caves or bunkers is being explored by a new four-university research initiative led by Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering.The hunt would begin over a wide area, using stationary and moving sensors that might scan for communications signals emanating from a bunker, or the different kinds of electromagnetic signatures put out by ...
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  • April 9, 2002

    Ultrasound Technique May Help Detect Breast Abnormalities

    DURHAM, N.C. - New and promising ultrasound techniques devised at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering can "remotely palpate" tissues, detecting and in some cases characterizing breast abnormalities that are deeper and smaller than the 1-centimeter-sized lesions that physicians can detect by feel, said the lead author of a just-released study. The technology has many other potential clinical applications, such as detecting clogged arteries and deep vein blood clots, Kathy Nightingale, an assistant research professor of ...
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  • February 13, 2002

    Major International Conference on Information Science Set for March

    MAJOR INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INFORMATION SCIENCES SET FOR MARCH About 400 engineers, scientists and technology managers from 34 countries are expected to attend the sixth Joint Conference on Information Sciences in Research Triangle Park next month to discuss the latest high-tech developments in areas such as artificial intelligence and optical ommunications. The meeting, which will include 10 workshops and specialty conferences, will be held March 8-13 at the Imperial Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center in Durham. "The concept ...
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  • February 4, 2002

    Rachael Brady Explores New Realm of Scientific Analysis

    by Monte Basgall On a large screen at Duke's North Building, a projected videotape shows a shadowy figure walking through a hugely magnified sperm tail of a fruit fly. As the person steps forward or stoops to peer at how particular features link up, the display -- a cluster of points of light that seems to float within a special room known as a CAVE -- spookily adjusts its own position to maintain a proper perspective. "Think of ...
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  • February 1, 2002

    Two Whitaker Foundation Grants to Fund Genomic Technology and Biophotonics

    The Whitaker Foundation has awarded two grants totaling nearly $2 million to the Pratt School of Engineering to accelerate promising research and teaching programs in genomic technology and biomolecular modeling, and in biophotonics, the merger of optical technologies with medicine. Both "Special Opportunity Awards" went to the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Together, they will fund four new faculty members, support new Ph.D. fellowships, outfit two new laboratories and help develop new undergraduate and graduate courses in biophotonics and genomic technology. "These awards build on the ...
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  • February 1, 2002

    Two Whitaker Foundation Grants to Fund Genomic Technology and Biophotonics

    The Whitaker Foundation has awarded two grants totaling nearly $2 million to the Pratt School of Engineering to accelerate promising research and teaching programs in genomic technology and biomolecular modeling, and in biophotonics, the merger of optical technologies with medicine. Both "Special Opportunity Awards" went to the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Together, they will fund four new faculty members, support new Ph.D. fellowships, outfit two new laboratories and help develop new undergraduate and graduate courses in biophotonics and genomic technology. "These awards build on the ...
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  • January 19, 2002

    Talking with light: Brady sees growth in photonics

    by Monte Basgall In his futuristic office in Hudson Hall, David Brady uses computers and remote closed-circuit TV links to project images on screens throughout the room. This way, he can observe several events at once at distant out-of-state locations. This proved helpful earlier this year, when he monitored his family's progress as they moved from Illinois to Durham. "I can see what's going on in different places," the Brian F. Addy Endowed Director of Duke's new Fitzpatrick ...
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  • December 1, 2001

    Duke Engineers Creating 'More Refined' Global Climate Model

    Frustrated by the limitations of present numerical models that simulate how Earth's climate will be altered by factors such as pollution and landscape modification, Duke University engineers are creating a new model incorporating previously-missing regional and local processes. "The model we are developing is much more refined," said the project's leader, Roni Avissar, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering. Unlike previous designs now used by the world's climatologists, ...
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  • December 1, 2001

    Duke Engineers Creating 'More Refined' Global Climate Model

    Frustrated by the limitations of present numerical models that simulate how Earth's climate will be altered by factors such as pollution and landscape modification, Duke University engineers are creating a new model incorporating previously-missing regional and local processes. "The model we are developing is much more refined," said the project's leader, Roni Avissar, chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering. Unlike previous designs now used by the world's climatologists, ...
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  • October 28, 2001

    Panelists: Technology Offers Opportunity to Fight Terrorism

    by Steven Wright Information will be the most important weapon in the war against terrorism, five Duke University professors said Thursday night (Oct. 25). "This is the largest opportunity for engineers in a generation to contribute to the public good," said David Brady, director of the Fitzpatrick Center for Photonics and Communication Systems and professor of electrical engineering. The Pratt School of Engineering forum, the seventh in a series sponsored by the university to address issues confronting ...
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  • August 31, 2001

    Duke Researchers' Tree-Like Biomolecule Under Evaluation for Applications in Eyes and Joints

    Note to editors: Mark Grinstaff can be reached at (919) 660-1621 or mwg@chem.duke.edu. A matching graphic slugged molecule.tif is available at http://photo1.dukenews.duke.edu/pages/Duke_News_Service. DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University Chemistry Department researchers are creating unique polymers out of naturally occurring building blocks that don't provoke immune reactions and in some cases also biodegrade in the body. The tree-like, globular-shaped substances are being evaluated for a variety of medical uses. Called biodendrimers, these structures are prepared by systematically reacting acids ...
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  • February 3, 2001

    Long-Range Magnetic Studies Explain How Delayed 'Sprites' Get Their Energy

    LONG-RANGE MAGNETIC STUDIES EXPLAIN HOW DELAYED 'SPRITES' GET THEIR ENERGY DURHAM, N.C. -- Magnetic field measurements by a German researcher and analyses by a Duke University engineer explain how dual electrical discharges associated with the creation of ghostly, high-altitude "sprites" can sometimes be separated by unusually long intervals lasting as much or more than one-tenth of a second. Their studies show that previously undocumented strong cloud-to-ground electrical currents can persist between the first and the follow-up discharges, maintaining ...
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  • June 3, 1998

    Duke Engineers Apply 'Fuzzy' Thinking to Hotel Management

    DURHAM, N.C. - Duke engineers have shown that intentionally imprecise rules of thinking called "fuzzy logic" can help hotel computers sell the right room to the right customer at the right time, thus boosting income. In a pilot study at two North Carolina hotels, researchers at the Duke School of Engineering's Machine Intelligence Laboratory found that the Bass Hotels and Resorts chain could achieve a "measurable" revenue increase by adding a fuzzy logic expert system to ...
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