Friday, August 22, 2008

The Mover

Panagiotou plans on taking small things to big places

By Amy Castor, Special to Mass High Tech

When Microfluidics International Corp. needed a new chief technology officer, it did not have far to look. The Newton-based company, which develops nanoparticles for applications in the pharmaceutical, chemical, food, and cosmetics industries, plucked Thomai “Mimi” Panagiotou, who had already proven herself as its vice president of research and development.

Growing up in Greece, the daughter of math and science teachers, Panagiotou knew since she was 8 what she wanted to do. “I liked science a lot,” she said. “I like to do things with my hands, taking things apart to know how they worked. Probably never putting them back together again. My bicycle was always apart and that was what I enjoyed more than riding it.”

Science was something she couldn’t get enough of. After finishing a five-year program in mechanical engineering in Greece, Panagiotou headed to Boston’s Northeastern University to pursue a master’s degree and eventually a Ph.D. in the subject. “I never felt a culture shock when I moved here,” she said.

In graduate school, her research on small particles laid the foundation for her career. “I liked research, and I liked going from one field to another. In my master’s, I did work in environmental engineering having to do with byproducts of soot from diesel engines. And then in my Ph.D., I studied the combustion of plastic wastes. In the process, I invented a technique for making polymer coatings.”

Her research led to positions at Arthur D. Little Inc. as a manager and at Physical Sciences Inc. of Andover as a principal engineer. In her career, Panagiotou led a variety of research efforts, including a multimillion-dollar inhaled insulin project. “My previous experience in diesel engines helped me go to drug delivery,” she said. “The soot is toxic, but it’s a small particle size that people can inhale and it gets stuck in the lungs. And when you deliver insulin by inhalation, you want the particle size to be such that they are trapped in the lungs.”

As CTO at Microfluidics, Panagiotou’s role has shifted. Instead of working with nanoparticles hands-on, she is charting a technical course for the company.

“I’m involved in figuring out what we should develop, industry trends, the types of alliances we should have, and what competing technologies are out there.”

 

Amy Castor is freelance writer in Amherst.