|
Hansen Bow, Theodore Moallem, and Christopher Rohde
Named Recipients of 2009 Peake Awards
For Immediate Release
FRIDAY, 31 March 2009
Contact: William Smith, Assistant
Director for Finance and Sponsor Relations
Phone: +1.617.253.5621
Email: whs@mit.edu
CAMBRIDGE, MA. 03.31.2009
Mr. Hansen Bow, a doctoral student in Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science, has been awarded the Helen Carr
Peake Research Assistantship for September 2009 through
August 2010. Mr. Bow’s doctoral research is being
done in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE)
under the supervision of Prof. Jongyoon
Han. Mr. Theodore
Moallem and Mr. Christopher Rohde have won Helen Carr
Peake Research Prizes for 2009. Mr. Moallem, who is
a doctoral student in the Speech and Hearing Bioscience
and Technology Program in the Harvard-MIT Division
of Health Sciences and Technology, is working under
the joint supervision of Prof. Louis
Braida, Dr. Charlotte
Reed, and Mr. Nathaniel
Durlach in RLE. Mr. Rohde is
a doctoral student in the Department of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science whose research is
being supervised by Prof. Mehmet
Fatih Yanik in RLE.
Mr. Bow’s doctoral research — which is
about developing microfluidic devices to fractionate
cells efficiently and accurately — was motivated
by his experience in the Graduate Education in Medical
Sciences (GEMS) program within the Harvard-MIT Division
of Health Sciences and Technology (HST). In particular,
Mr. Bow is pursuing the goal of high-throughput, rare
cell sorting based on the mechanical flexibility of
cells. In biology and diagnostics, sorting and collecting
rare cells contained in large cell populations is an
important technological challenge. Moreover, there
are many diseases, including malaria and cancer, which
are known to change the mechanical flexibility of cells.
So far, Mr. Bow has designed and fabricated his device,
and performed successful proof-of-principle experiments
using glutaraldehyde-treated red blood cells. This
work was presented at the MicroTAS 2008 meeting. Mr.
Bow is presently working with Dean Subra Suresh at
MIT and Prof. C. T. Lim at the National University
of Singapore on using his device for sorting malaria-infected
red blood cells.
Mr. Moallem’s doctoral research is concerned
with the development of tactual speech-communication
aids for the deaf and deaf/blind. It is based on the
use of the tactual sensory system as a substitute for
hearing, and involves the development of strategies
for encoding acoustic signals for display to the skin.
His experiments have established that deaf individuals
are capable of taking advantage of temporally-derived
speech cues that are the basis of a tactual aid for
lip reading. More generally, Mr. Moallem is deeply
committed to applying technology to solve problems
faced by persons with sensory disabilities, including
and especially such persons living in underdeveloped
nations. Thus, he has developed a Braille pencil, a
lightweight device using inexpensive materials that
allows the user to produce Braille in the same left-to-right
direction that it is read. He has also invented a Braille
labeler, which enables the user to produce Braille
dot patterns with a single template using Scotch tape
that can be conveniently applied to the surface of
objects that are to be labeled.
Mr. Rohde’s doctoral research is aimed at developing
technologies for high-throughput neurobiology and neuroscience.
He has developed the world’s first on-chip, high-throughput,
whole-animal screening technology. It is a microfluidic
technology that can dramatically accelerate — by
two or three orders of magnitude — current genome-wide
assays and drug screens on small animals like C. elegans.
He has also developed microfluidic technology to immobilize
physiologically active animals of this class without
anesthesia. Using his chips in conjunction with femtosecond
laser nanosurgery, Mr. Rohde has performed the first
in vivo chemical screen to identify compounds that
enhance neural regeneration after injury. He has recently
identified several drug candidates that significantly
enhance neural regeneration in C. elegans without toxicity.
Mr. Rohde’s research has been published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and
in Lab on a Chip.
The Helen Carr Peake Fund, which supports these awards,
was established to honor the late wife of Professor
William T. Peake. The selection of Mr. Bow was done
by a committee consisting of Professor
Dennis M. Freeman (MIT/RLE), Professor
Jeffrey H. Shapiro (MIT, Director
RLE), Professor M. Charles Liberman (Harvard, Director
EPL), Professor William T. Peake (MIT/RLE/EPL) and
Professor John
L. Wyatt (MIT/RLE).
|
