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Chad Mirkin, director of Northwestern University’s International Institute for Nanotechnology, has won the $500,000 2009 Lemelson-MIT Prize, awarded to outstanding mid-career inventors, for his work in health care-related nanotechnology, according to the Lemelson-MIT Program.
Mirkin is best known for developing nanoparticle-based medical diagnostic assays. The assays are used to detect low concentrations of molecules that signify diseases. The technology can test patients for several different diseases at the same time, in under an hour. The diagnostic has shown promise for the detection of proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease, allowing for early intervention, according to the Lemelson-MIT program.
Mirkin spun the technology out into the company Nanosphere Inc. He also recently founded Aurasense, a company that commercializes his work with gold nanoparticles for cancer and heart disease treatments.
Mirkin has also developed technology, called dip-pen nanolithography, intended to allow users to print on the nanoscopic scale. The technology allows researchers to print features of proteins, DNA and other biological materials on surfaces with sub-50 nanometer resolution, which could help researchers understand how viruses infect cells, differentiate between healthy and cancerous cells, or discover the genetic code associated with a new flu virus. Mirkin licensed the technology to NanoInk Inc.
Mirkin’s latest technology, polymer-pen lithography, uses millions of polymer-based tips for nanoscale printing. It is intended to cover a larger surface area and has commercial applications including computational tools, medical diagnostics and pharmaceutical discovery.
Mirkin will accept the prize this week at the program’s EurekaFest, an event at MIT and the Museum of Science.
In March, MIT graduate student Geoffrey von Maltzahn co-founded a startup, Resonance Therapeutics, based on technologies that earned him the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for Inventions. Von Maltzahn developed a drug delivery system to target tumors more efficiently with existing drugs, without affecting surrounding tissue. He also made advancements in using gold nanoscale rods to act as antenna to attract radiation treatments, sparing surrounding healthy tissue.
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