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Eric Isaacs is President of Argonne National Laboratory and Board Member of C2ST

Courtesy: The Huffington Post

If you want proof of the real-world value of basic science research, take a look under the hood of GM’s innovative new Chevy Volt. There you’ll find a safe, long-lasting lithium-ion battery that uses materials developed and patented at Argonne National Laboratory.

The Chevy Volt, and the Argonne-developed materials inside the GM battery that drives its wheels, demonstrate that American ingenuity, powered by American investment, can renew our industries, create good jobs, improve our energy security and protect our environment.

As America’s first mass-produced electric vehicle, the Volt represents a major, exciting step toward electrification of our nation’s transportation fleet — a critical component of President Obama’s vision of ending America’s dependence on foreign oil.

The 2011 Chevrolet Volts 16 kWh battery can be recharged using a 120V or 240V outlet. X11CH_VT159

Just as important, the development of the electric car is recharging the American battery industry, creating new green tech jobs where they are most needed. Under just-announced licensing agreements, battery manufacturer LG Chem is building batteries using Argonne’s cutting-edge lithium-rich materials, and General Motors can use Argonne’s battery technology throughout its supply chain — for the Volt and for future electric vehicles. Already, an LG Chem subsidiary is building a new battery facility in Michigan. The plant, which was partially funded through the federal stimulus program, will employ more than 400 workers.

As Director of a Department of Energy national laboratory, I am sometimes questioned about the investment of taxpayer dollars of basic scientific research, especially in these challenging economic times. Today I am proud to answer those questions by pointing to the role Argonne’s “dream team” of scientists and engineers has played in the development of the new electric car. Our fundamental research made it possible to develop reliable, safer cathode materials for car batteries, and our advanced energy storage technologies are backed up with years of world-class basic and applied research and development, as well as extensive testing and validation.

Argonne’s collaboration with the U.S. auto industry shows that our national laboratories are delivering on the Department of Energy’s mission to expand the innovation pipeline, which runs from the earliest discoveries of basic science to the development of amazing products built by U.S. industry and delivered to American consumers.

Our latest contribution to today’s electric car batteries is only the beginning. Argonne researchers already are racing to create a new generation of car battery technologies. As Foreign Policy magazine recently noted,

“The future of the electric-car industry belongs not to the scientists and engineers who perfect the batteries we have now, but the ones who figure out what comes next, in the 2020s, the 2030s, and beyond… The holy grail is a battery powerful and safe enough to challenge the energy density of gasoline and the freedom of the internal combustion engine.”

The stakes for our national economy are incredibly high. The research firm IHS Global Insight predicts that advances in battery technology will allow hybrids and electric cars to grab up to 15 percent of the world’s new-car sales by 2020. At today’s production rates, that adds up to about 7.5 million cars a year — and at an average cost of $30,000 per car, that equals $225 billion a year, roughly equivalent to Toyota’s entire global sales in 2009, Foreign Policy calculates.

It won’t be easy. But I am optimistic that the national laboratories, in collaboration with private industry, can provide world-class, mission-driven basic and applied research that will keep America in the forefront of energy technology.

The rollout of a practical, reliable electric car represents a milestone in American auto technology that underscores the critical need for continuing, significant investment in basic research at laboratories nationwide. It shows that intellectual curiosity, combined with an innovative spirit, continue to fuel the engine of America’s economic might.

Physicist Eric D. Isaacs is the Director of Argonne National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy’s first national laboratory for science and engineering research.

- Eric Isaacs

One of the biggest challenges to early stage innovation is that it most needs experienced advice when it is least able to attract it, says Alan Thomas, director of UChicagoTech, the University of Chicago’s  Office of Technology and Intellectual Property. “A structural problem in Chicago is that at this embryonic point there have been very few resources to turn to,” he says.

The solution: Chicago Innovation Mentors (CIM), a new multi-institution initiative that cultivates university technology commercialization by matching experienced entrepreneurs, executives, and domain experts with innovating faculty.

CIM will initially support biomedical opportunities from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, in collaboration with the iBIO®  Institute. All four groups are co-founders of CIM.

Start-up ventures are more likely to thrive when advised by multiple mentors with proven skills and experience. “Collectively we are stewarding discoveries flowing from between a billion and a billion and half dollars per year of basic research,” Thomas says.

At the inaugural CIM kick-off event in November, more than 25 prospective mentors with diverse backgrounds and significant records of accomplishment met at the Gleacher Center to learn more about how their talents could assist mentees, and specifically, faculty members, who have an interest in commercializing research from their lab.

Adapted from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s successful venture mentoring service, and being launched in collaboration with MIT, CIM places an emphasis on creating a safe haven for mentees. The number one reason innovators don’t take advice is that they don’t trust the motives of the advisor, says Thomas. In this program, mentor conflicts of interest are rigorously screened out.

Team Mentoring
A second key feature of the program is team mentoring. Mentees will be assigned four or five mentors.   The team concept brings diversity and balance.  For those selected to be mentors, the team meetings, plus monthly meetings of all mentors, provide a unique networking opportunity.

Mentee John Hetling, PhD, Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Vice President of Scientific Affairs at his start-up company, RetMap, Inc., along with two other company founders, Tamas Ban (President) and Safa Rahmani (Medical Affairs), are seeking expert guidance in the commercialization of a novel screening for eye disease, including in-depth understanding of the FDA approval processes and assistance with large-scale manufacturing design concepts. “CIM has the potential to help us better navigate the complex commercialization path of our technology from the clinical research setting to clinical application; our main goal with RetMap is to impact patient care through commercialization,” he says.

Entrepreneurs can save time learning from the successes and failures of those who have gone before them, says David Miller, president and CEO of the iBIO Institute. “This volunteerism is a critical part of the ecosystem; it supports the mentees in their efforts to take technical discoveries and turn them into commercialized product, and it really accelerates the learning curve.”

The problem of moving products to the market is often the researcher’s inability to show convincing proof-of-concept, which happens for two reasons: lack of know-how and lack of funding, adds Alicia Loffler, executive director and associate vice president for research for the Innovation and New Ventures Office at Northwestern University. “By wrapping the right know-how and connections around each project, we are starting to bridge that gap,” she says.

CIM is in “soft-launch” mode for now, says Nancy Sullivan, who is Director of the Office of Technology Management at the University of Illinois, Chicago. “As we tune-up the program, we hope to steadily grow our mentor base, number of mentees, number of institutions involved, and to expand the program beyond biomedical, to all fields to research-based innovation.”

For prospective mentor Steven Gould, MD, a former professor of surgery and a founder of Northfield Labs, CIM is an exciting opportunity to put Chicago on the map. “We all know that companies are increasingly looking to universities as their new pipeline and we have ample opportunity to unlock, right here in Chicago,” he says.

For more information on the mentoring program, contact Alan Thomas at 773-834-3212.

A new possible application of robotic exoskeletons has now come to light, thanks to a recent study from the University of Chicago – these devices may hold the key for patients hoping to regain the use of a paralyzed limb.

If there’s anything cooler than wearable robots, it’s moving things with your mind, and that’s exactly what these robots are designed to facilitate.  In their study, published last month in The Journal of Neuroscience, a research team led by Nicholas Hatsopoulos set up a system that translated brain wave activity of monkeys into the motion of a cursor on a screen, allowing a monkey to control the movement of the cursor using only its thoughts.

A robotic sleeve was fitted around the monkey’s arm, which moved the arm along with the motion of the cursor.  The researchers found that the robotic sleeve, which gave the monkey sensory feedback about how the cursor was moving, greatly improved the ability of the monkey to mentally manipulate the cursor.

The idea for the use of the robot came from what is known about how the brain usually controls movement of the body.  Imagine moving your arm: first, your brain tells your arm where to go.  As your arm moves, nerves in your arm relay information back to the brain about the arm’s position.  This allows the brain to make a new informed decision about where to move the arm next.  If the arm is paralyzed due to illness or injury, the brain can’t control the movement of the arm, but can often still receive information about the arm’s position (depending on the extent of the damage).

This is where the wearable robots come in – the robot does the job of moving the arm in response to instructions from the brain, and the arm keeps the brain updated about its motion.  In the study, this sensory feedback, so-called proprioception, allowed the monkeys to more quickly and more directly move the cursor on the screen towards targets compared to the case where the arm remained stationary.

Previous instances of devices that can be controlled by brain activity have relied on visual feedback alone, where the patient must watch the movement of the device.  The use of the robotic arm to add proprioceptive feedback more closely mimics motor control in healthy individuals.

The results presented by Hatsopoulos and his team are promising for patients with a paralyzed limb – devices with proprioception capabilities would offer a patient not only improved control, but also the ability to move the limb while looking away or with closed eyes.

Are robotic exoskeletons in the future for restoring the use of paralyzed limbs?  Only time will tell, but it’s safe to say that robot suits aren’t just for Ironman anymore.

See the press release from the University of Chicago here: http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2010/20101214-robot-arm.html

Want to learn more about devices that can be controlled by the brain? Watch this video of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh explaining how monkeys mentally control a robotic arm!

About the Author

Minna is a Ph.D. candidate in Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University

In her current research, Minna is working to solve mysteries about how organisms form biological minerals (such as bones and shells) by looking at them in new ways using X-ray microscopes at the Advanced Photon Source.  Most of her work involves a type of green algae that she hopes to use for cleanup of radioactive waste, but she’s also had the opportunity to work with other fun organisms such as bees, sea urchins, mussels, and clams (although she definitely could have done without the bees).

]]> http://c2st.org/blog/move-things-with-your-mind%e2%80%a6-with-the-help-of-wearable-robots-by-minna-krejci/feed 0 http://c2st.org/uncategorized/neighborhoods-still-working-to-close-digital-gap-by-jeffrey-steele http://c2st.org/uncategorized/neighborhoods-still-working-to-close-digital-gap-by-jeffrey-steele#comments Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:47:27 +0000 justin http://c2st.org/?p=4769 Courtesy: The Chicago Tribune

Although we are amid a digital revolution, digital connectedness is on the wish list of many residents in Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods this holiday season.

Studies have shown that cost is a major barrier to Internet access, especially in the home. In Chicago, nearly 40 percent of residents do not have the broadband connections required to compete in the Digital Age.

“This is typical of what we see in low-income communities,” said Karen Mossberger, professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who co-wrote the study “Digital Excellence in Chicago: A Citywide View of Technology Use.”

“People have a little experience, perhaps in libraries or at community centers,” Mossberger said. “But when it comes to being able to afford high-speed Internet access at home, and being able to use high-speed Internet at home, there are larger gaps.”

About this time last year, Mayor Richard Daley announced the Smart Communities program, the goal of which is to increase broadband access in five digitally underserved neighborhoods: Humboldt Park, Pilsen, Auburn Gresham, Chicago Lawn and Englewood.

All of the neighborhoods are predominantly African-American or Hispanic. Both ethnic groups are more likely than whites to cite cost as the main reason for not being online, according to the study of Chicago’s digital scene.

So far, Smart Communities has paid for computer training, the installation of kiosks that provide public Internet access in each neighborhood, and summer youth projects. There also are Web-based community portals in each of the neighborhoods that allow users to post their own content, such as job training resources.

In Humboldt Park, the Smart Communities project recently partnered with the nonprofit Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp. and several civic groups. Mossberger’s report found that residents in that neighborhood were less likely to go online to get information about health services, political candidates, public transit schedules and government services. Only in job hunts did Humboldt Park residents use the Internet as often as Chicagoans in general, her study found

- Jeffrey Steele

Astronomer, Adler Planetarium

Executive Director, KV 265

José Francisco Salgado is an astronomer and visual artist at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and Executive Director of KV 265, a non-profit organization whose mission is the communication of science through art. Formally trained in Physics (BS, Univ. of Puerto Rico) and Astronomy (PhD, Univ. of Michigan), he uses his skills in astronomy, education, and visual arts to create multimedia works that communicate science in engaging ways. His education and outreach efforts include Spanish-language programs, an Emmy-nominated astronomy TV news segment (Nuestra Galaxia, WGBO), and critically acclaimed astronomy films (Gustav Holst’s The Planets and Astronomical Pictures at an Exhibition) created to accompany live performances of classical music works. These films were featured in the opening ceremony of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and were shown around the world as part of IYA2009 festivities. By mid-2010, the films had been presented more than 50 times in 13 countries including collaborations with the Boston Pops and Buzz Aldrin, the San Francisco Symphony, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio di Torino.

Salgado, an avid photographer, experiments with high dynamic range imaging, time-lapse, infrared, and fisheye photography, as well as with stereoscopic photography and video to enhance his multimedia works. Through his artwork, Salgado seeks to create visually appealing images to provoke curiosity and a sense of wonder about the Earth and the Universe. His artwork, astronomy films, photographs, and illustrations have been published in magazines and science books, and shown in cities such as San Juan, Chicago, Victoria, Melbourne, Belgrade, Athens, Piestany (Slovakia), Paris, Madrid, Valencia, Taipei, Torino, Venice, and Prague. He is currently producing new science and symphony films and collaborating with musician/composer Tom Bailey (formerly of British pop group Thompson Twins).

Multimedia talking touchscreens, housed in computer kiosks at clinics and hospitals, are helping researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and clinicians at local health care centers enhance patient-centered care for patients with diverse language, literacy and computer skills.

The easy-to-use touchscreens read questionnaires, provide patient education material and collect patient data. Each piece of text on the screen has sound attached to it, and users record answers by pressing buttons.

The talking touchscreens are currently being used in a Cancer Care Communication study funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Three Chicago-area cancer clinics for underserved populations are participating in the study to administer education material to newly diagnosed breast and colorectal cancer patients.

Elizabeth Hahn, an associate professor in the department of medical social sciences at Feinberg, developed the touchscreens as a tool to help end health disparities in underserved populations. Right now, the computer is capable of talking in English and Spanish. More languages may be added in the future, Hahn said.

This tool provides more privacy and allows people to complete questionnaires in their native language, at their own pace.

Hahn’s current study includes up to 200 study participants. Half of the participants get standard booklets printed with educational information, the other half get that same information on the multimedia talking touchscreen.

“Our goal is to demonstrate that information from a multimedia touchscreen can improve satisfaction with communication, knowledge, self-efficacy and adherence to treatment compared to information provided in standard booklets,” she said.

People with good reading skills may benefit from the technology as well, Hahn said, because the addition of audio may enhance concentration. The kiosk also houses informational videos and other tools such as a patient-generated list of topics to discuss with their health care providers.

In the future, Hahn hopes that every clinic waiting room will have talking touchscreen technology. After registering at the front desk, a patient could sit at the kiosk, complete questionnaires, access health information and even feed their data into an electronic medical record.

“Imagine being able to have that information available, so that by the time patients get in to see their doctors, there would be a print-out with a quality of life score, a health literacy score and self-identified needs for today’s visit,” Hahn said. “We have the technology to do it. That link of getting it to the electronic medical record is an area we are working on now.”

- Erin White