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The San Diego Union-Tribune Tech Profile Column

Posted on: Friday, 29 July 2005, 12:01 CDT

Jul. 29--JEFFREY SMITH

Organization: The Burnham Institute

Title: Director, Program of Excellence in Nanotechnology

Age: 42

QUESTION: Researcher Jeffrey Smith heads a team of 25 scientists from three major research institutes to design nanotechnologies to detect and treat "vulnerable" plaque, an underlying condition that leads to almost all heart attacks.

ANSWER: Last month, the project team, with scientists from Burnham, the Scripps Research Institute and the University of California Santa Barbara, received a $13 million federal grant to begin the job. The Burnham Institute was selected as a "Program of Excellence in Nanotechnology" by the National Institutes of Health.

Q: Why was the Burnham Institute's nanotechnology project put together?

A: The project was created with the intent of using nanotechnology as a viable approach toward heart disease. One of the challenges in nanomedicine is to create devices capable of sensing and responding to conditions of disease. Our approach tackles this issue in a unique way, by marrying biological molecules that naturally sense the disease with fabricated nanodevices that can deliver drugs or send signals. These hybrid devices take what's best from both disciplines, the highly specific sensing capability of the biological component, and the opportunity for external control of the nanodevice.

Q: What about your job directing this project keeps you up at night?

A: How in the world are we all going to talk to each other in a technically meaningful way. Our project demands that we work at the interface between biology, engineering and physics. Yet, being able to define and discuss this interface is a huge problem, because we have all been trained in very specific disciplines. It is very difficult for a physicist to talk to a biologist about designing an experiment or a device. We almost have to build a language of our own to communicate.

Q: What aspects of the project do you brag about?

A: I think about our project as "complete science fiction" that we are going to make reality. Making miniature robots that can find a heart attack waiting to happen and then repair the problem is an absurdly lofty goal, but the unique capabilities of the team we have assembled make this objective far closer to reality, and an objective where it is time to at least begin.

Q: There has been a lot of hype about nanotechnology but little of substance in the way of nano-based therapies. When do you think nanotechnology will come into its own -- and what is the biggest hurdle that has to be overcome before it is of practical use?

A: In this regard nanotechnology is no different than the other major advances in biotech. With every major opportunity in biotech and medicine, it is introduced to the world with hype that, quite frankly, is driven by the needs and desires of the investment community -- the desire to raise capital to commercialize the ideas and discoveries. We, as scientists are under no illusions about the time and effort required to accomplish something real and translatable. If you want to see the discoveries we are working on come to the bedside, it will be 10 to 15 years.

Q: Tell us something interesting about yourself.

A: This comes under the heading of life-changing experience. As a competitive swimmer in college I swam 22,000 meters in one day, which is about 12 miles. I decided if I could suffer that much then everything else was trivial. And it has been, compared to that.

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Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

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