Visit INBT's profile on TryNano.org.

The TryNano.org website contains feature articles, links, information boxes, videos, and interviews with professionals focused on research and applications of matter at the nanoscale. Generally, the nanoscale is considered to be dimensions from 1 to 100 nanometers, with 1 nm equal to 10-9m. This site strives to a one-stop resource for students, parents, educators and professionals seeking information about nanoscience and nanotechnology. Trynano.org is sponsored by IBM, IEEE and TryScience.

To check out INBT’s profile on TryNano.org, click here.

For the most up-to-the-minute news on what is happening at Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT) follow us on Twitter. INBT’s science writer, Mary Spiro, will be tweeting the latest information about the institute’s research, educational programs, newest affiliated faulty members, workshops and events. Follow us at @INBT_JHU or visit the INBT Twitter page.

For more details visit http://inbt.jhu.edu/life-after-graduate-school-or-lessons-learned-after-15-years-in-industry/2009/07/09

Matthew Lesho

Update – this talk has been rescheduled to Tuesday July 28 at 11 a.m. in 110 Maryland Hall.

Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology presents Matthew J. Lesho, PhD, Biomedical Engineer with Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems for the final Professional Development Seminar for this summer. His talk, “Life after graduate school: Or lessons learned after 15 years in industry,” will be held July 22 Tuesday July 28 at 11 a.m. in 110 Maryland Hall Room B17 CSEB. This seminar is free and open to students, faculty, and staff.

Ever wonder what it might be like to work in industry for a small medical device start-up company or a large defense contractor? Learn from an expert with nearly 15 years in industry. Lesho will lead an interactive discussion that will highlight the similarities and differences of working in industry as compared to a career in academia. Lesho also will ask the audience to share their perceptions about what they think life will be like after graduation. This seminar provides some real world examples of product and technology development in the industrial environment to help students studying science and engineering gain some perspective on how their academic degrees could be applied to current medical, the military, or homeland defense challenges.

Lesho received his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. His master’s work involved studies of the microcirculation and his doctoral work used microfabrication technology and polymer science to develop biosensors based on electrochemically responsive hydrogels. He has over 14 years of industrial experience, including over seven years as at Cygnus, Inc., where he held increasingly responsible roles from technical contributor, manager, and associate director of efforts to develop, manufacture, gain FDA approval and market the first home-use non-invasive glucose monitor.

At Northrop Grumman, Lesho has held positions of biomedical engineer, project manager, program manager, and area manager for biodetection. Specific programs have involved development of next-generation instruments that detect and identify chemical and biological warfare agents, including the DARPA HISSS program. He is holder of eight patents in the area of glucose monitoring and processing of sensor data, three pending patent applications in the area of biological detection. He has a number of publications in fields of biosensors, clinical applications of medical sensors, and cellular physiology and has given invited talks in the areas of biodetection and nanotechnology for biosensing.

To attend this INBT Professional Development Seminar, please RSVP to Ashanti Edwards at aedwards@jhu.edu before July 21, 2009.

What is the DARPA HISSS program? http://www.darpa.mil/STO/chembio/hisss.html

Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems Website http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/

Tim Weihs

Tim Weihs of the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering will be the next guest speaker for the Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT) Professional Development Seminars on July 8, at 11 a.m. in 110 Maryland Hall. Weihs, a professor of materials science and engineering, is co-founder of Reactive NanoTechnologies (RNT), which produces NanoFoil®.

RNT makes the patented NanoFoil® at its Hunt Valley, Md. facility. This new class of nano-engineered material is fabricated by vapor-depositing thousands of alternating layers of aluminum and nickel. The foil can be activated electrically, optically or via a heat source to deliver localized temperatures up to 1500C in just fractions of a second. The foil can be used for applications requiring rapid and precise bonding, such as attaching an LED to a circuit board.

Tim Weihs received a B.S. from Dartmouth College in 1983, an M.E. from Thayer School of Engineering in 1985, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University in 1990. He worked as a NATO postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Materials at Oxford University, and completed a second postdoctoral study in the Chemistry and Materials Science Department at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In 1995, he joined the faculty in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Weihs is also an INBT affiliated faculty member.

In 2002, Weihs took a leave of absence from Hopkins to co-found Reactive NanoTechnologies with Omar Knio, a Hopkins professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering. After growing the company to the point of first commercial sales, Weihs returned to full-time teaching and research duties but maintains a small role with RNT as its Chief Technical Officer. His awards include a National Science Foundation Career Award, a 3M Young Faculty Fellowship, an R & D 100 Award, and an Innovator of the Year Award.

To attend this talk, please RSVP to Ashanti Edwards at aedwards@jhu.edu by July 7.

Reactive NanoTechnologies
http://www.rntfoil.com/site/

Tim Weihs’ Faculty Page
http://materials.jhu.edu/index.php/people/faculty/weihs

NEXT UP

Charles Day, second speaker at the 2009 INBT Professional Development Seminars.

June 24:

“From tip to tale: How science news is made“

Charles Day, senior editor Physics Today

Day earned a PhD in astronomy from the University of Cambridge. After a postdoctoral position at Japan’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, he worked for six years at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He now writes for and edits the Search and Discovery Department for Physics Today, the flagship publication of The American Institute of Physics and most influential and closely followed physics magazine in the world.

July speakers to be announced. Check back here for more info.

Past speakers:

June 10:

“The Role of Intellectual Property in Technology Commercialization and Academic Research.”

John N. Fini, director of intellectual property, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Whiting School of Engineering

Fini brings a wealth of experience in technology transfer and technology commercialization and in the entrepreneurial environment. He works closely with Johns Hopkins Technology Transfer with the aim of promoting the Homewood campus as a technology powerhouse.

Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering Special Seminar Wednesday, May 20th at noon

234 Ames Hall

Nano and Environment: Where to look for the nano-needle in the environmental haystack?

Bernd Nowack
Materials, Products and the Environment Group Empa – Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research St. Gallen, Switzerland

The behavior and the effects of nanomaterials in the environment are currently under heavy investigation and are discussed both in the scientific world as well as in the public. An elementary step towards a quantitative assessment of the risks of new compounds to the environment is to calculate their predicted environmental concentrations (PEC). We used a life-cycle perspective to model the quantities of engineered nanoparticles released into the environment.

The quantification was based on a substance flow analysis of nanomaterials from products to air, soil, water and sediments. The method was applied to the engineered nanoparticles titanium dioxide, silver, carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, and ZnO. The PEC-values obtained with this modeling were then compared to the predicted no effect concentrations (PNEC) derived from the ecotoxicological literature to estimate a possible risk. The expected concentrations of the nanomaterials in the different environmental compartments vary widely, caused by the different life cycles of the nanomaterial-containing products. The results of this study make it possible for the first time to carry out a quantitative risk assessment of nanomaterials in the environment and suggest further detailed studies of nano-Ag, nano-ZnO and nano-TiO2. The results also provide information in which environmental compartments we should first look for nanomaterials and what concentrations we can expect.