By Elise Kleeman Staff Writer
PASADENA - Paul Rothemund does not consider himself a genius.
"At Caltech and elsewhere, I am surrounded by real geniuses all the time, people much quicker than me in a variety of ways," said the tall, brown-haired Caltech scientist.
Some, it seems, would disagree.
Rothemund, 35, was one of 24 recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, a $500,000 prize often known as the "genius grant."
The no-strings-attached award can be used by the recipients any way they please and is intended to "enable recipients to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society," according to the MacArthur Foundation.
When they call you, Rothemund said, "they say, `The only thing you have to do is cash the checks. We have no expectations of you, you don't need to report back what you're doing, you're never going to hear from us again. Bye."'
Among this year's other prize winners are a blues musician, a spider silk biologist, a medieval historian, two painters, an author of short stories and another Caltech scientist - Michael Elowitz, a 37-year-old molecular biologist.
Like all the other winners, Elowitz found out about the prize a week before the rest of the Advertisement world.
"I received a phone call, which, among other things, swore me to secrecy," he wrote by e-mail last week from Greece, where he was attending a conference. "The element of secrecy, however transient, really added to the fun. It was one of the best phone calls for me in recent memory."
Both Elowitz and Rothemund are in the forefront of a new interdisciplinary field that some call synthetic biology.
"There's a convergence between a number of fields - chemistry, biology and computer science, where people are thinking about how to create biological circuits or how to program biology," said Erik Winfree, the director of the lab in which Rothemund works and himself a 2000 MacArthur Fellow.
Elowitz's work involves studying chains of interactions between genes and proteins that allow cells to process information, make decisions and communicate.
"He does some of the most beautiful experiments I know of," Winfree said. "They're simultaneously aesthetically pleasing - you could put them on your wall - and scientifically elegant, rigorous."
(In fact, Elowitz does display some images from his experiments on the walls of his lab.)
He studies genetic pathways by linking different genes in bacteria to the production of a rainbow of fluorescent colors. By videotaping how the bacteria's colors change, he can watch as the microbes pass through the steps of the genetic circuit.
"You have something that sort of looks like Froot Loops, except it's growing organisms," said Winfree of the bacteria.
Winfree describes Elowitz as "a joy because he's an enthusiastic, funny guy" who is "so excited about the things he's doing."
Rothemund also works with genetic material, using a loop of virus DNA to create what he calls "DNA origami."
By adding smaller, synthetic strands of DNA that act as staples, he figured out how make the viral DNA fold itself into any shape he wants, each about one-one-thousandth the width of a human hair.
So far, those shapes have included smiley faces, maps of North America, and snowflake patterns. But his technique could one day be the basis for the construction of smaller and faster computer chips.
"It was an exciting development," said Ned Seeman, a New York University chemist who also uses DNA as tiny molecular building blocks. "A lot of the things that we're doing in my lab have been reoriented because of the things Paul did."
Unlike previous, less successful techniques for constructing with DNA, Rothemund's is surprisingly simple.
The virus DNA is easy to come by and the DNA staples can be made to order, Rothemund said.
"They come in a FedEx package, and you take the little tubes and dump them together, add a little saltwater, heat them up and cool them off," he said.
Then, voila - in a single drop of water are a hundred billion shapes.
One "enormous challenge," though, "is figuring out how to put them where you want them and get them in the right orientation," he said.
"I haven't even begun to think of what to do with the money, but one non-scientific fantasy involves tennis lessons," Elowitz wrote. "I plan to resist the temptation to take up an extreme sport."
Source : www.whittierdailynews.com
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PASADENA - Paul Rothemund does not consider himself a genius.
"At Caltech and elsewhere, I am surrounded by real geniuses all the time, people much quicker than me in a variety of ways," said the tall, brown-haired Caltech scientist.
Some, it seems, would disagree.
Rothemund, 35, was one of 24 recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, a $500,000 prize often known as the "genius grant."
The no-strings-attached award can be used by the recipients any way they please and is intended to "enable recipients to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society," according to the MacArthur Foundation.
When they call you, Rothemund said, "they say, `The only thing you have to do is cash the checks. We have no expectations of you, you don't need to report back what you're doing, you're never going to hear from us again. Bye."'
Among this year's other prize winners are a blues musician, a spider silk biologist, a medieval historian, two painters, an author of short stories and another Caltech scientist - Michael Elowitz, a 37-year-old molecular biologist.
Like all the other winners, Elowitz found out about the prize a week before the rest of the Advertisement world.
"I received a phone call, which, among other things, swore me to secrecy," he wrote by e-mail last week from Greece, where he was attending a conference. "The element of secrecy, however transient, really added to the fun. It was one of the best phone calls for me in recent memory."
Both Elowitz and Rothemund are in the forefront of a new interdisciplinary field that some call synthetic biology.
"There's a convergence between a number of fields - chemistry, biology and computer science, where people are thinking about how to create biological circuits or how to program biology," said Erik Winfree, the director of the lab in which Rothemund works and himself a 2000 MacArthur Fellow.
Elowitz's work involves studying chains of interactions between genes and proteins that allow cells to process information, make decisions and communicate.
"He does some of the most beautiful experiments I know of," Winfree said. "They're simultaneously aesthetically pleasing - you could put them on your wall - and scientifically elegant, rigorous."
(In fact, Elowitz does display some images from his experiments on the walls of his lab.)
He studies genetic pathways by linking different genes in bacteria to the production of a rainbow of fluorescent colors. By videotaping how the bacteria's colors change, he can watch as the microbes pass through the steps of the genetic circuit.
"You have something that sort of looks like Froot Loops, except it's growing organisms," said Winfree of the bacteria.
Winfree describes Elowitz as "a joy because he's an enthusiastic, funny guy" who is "so excited about the things he's doing."
Rothemund also works with genetic material, using a loop of virus DNA to create what he calls "DNA origami."
By adding smaller, synthetic strands of DNA that act as staples, he figured out how make the viral DNA fold itself into any shape he wants, each about one-one-thousandth the width of a human hair.
So far, those shapes have included smiley faces, maps of North America, and snowflake patterns. But his technique could one day be the basis for the construction of smaller and faster computer chips.
"It was an exciting development," said Ned Seeman, a New York University chemist who also uses DNA as tiny molecular building blocks. "A lot of the things that we're doing in my lab have been reoriented because of the things Paul did."
Unlike previous, less successful techniques for constructing with DNA, Rothemund's is surprisingly simple.
The virus DNA is easy to come by and the DNA staples can be made to order, Rothemund said.
"They come in a FedEx package, and you take the little tubes and dump them together, add a little saltwater, heat them up and cool them off," he said.
Then, voila - in a single drop of water are a hundred billion shapes.
One "enormous challenge," though, "is figuring out how to put them where you want them and get them in the right orientation," he said.
"I haven't even begun to think of what to do with the money, but one non-scientific fantasy involves tennis lessons," Elowitz wrote. "I plan to resist the temptation to take up an extreme sport."
Source : www.whittierdailynews.com
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