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Research News

  • July 17, 2008

    Tree Branching Key To Efficient Flow In Nature And Novel Materials

    By Richard Merritt 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 ...
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  • June 30, 2008

    Gold, DNA combination may lead to 'nano' sensor

    Note to editors: Anne Lazarides can be reached at (919) 660-5483 or anne.lazarides@duke.edu. The journal article is available online at http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/asap.cgi/nalefd/asap/html/nl080029h.html. 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 ...
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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

    By Richard Merritt 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 ...
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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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