The science that inspires!

The last page of the MIT TechTalk,-Volume 53, No. 17, March 4, 2009-displays the photograph of a smiling young man. The wall behind and the floor below him, are both chalked with seemingly esoteric inscriptions . This is Geoffrey von Maltzahn, the winner of this years Lemelson-MIT student Prize, an accolade that recognizes an outstanding inventor who proposes sustainable and innovative solutions to the worldly problems. "The $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize is awarded annually to an MIT senior or graduate student who has created or improved a product or process, applied a technology in a new way, redesigned a system, or demonstrated remarkable inventiveness in other ways. A distinguished panel of MIT alumni including scientists, technologists, engineers and entrepreneurs chooses the winner."

The "Gold Star" as the article is titled reporting Geoff's contribution is actually a pithy expression of his innovative approach in fighting, the scourge of all diseases, cancer. What made him the most deserving candidate for the prize were his two remarkable achievements; the development of new class of cancer therapeutics and establishment of new paradigm to enhance drug delivery to tumors.

I had reported in one of my previous posts about Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia who had developed nanoparticles that could precisely home in on tumor cells and deliver drugs specifically while convecting heat to the malignant cells at the same time when being subjected to microwaves. Geoff had been working with Dr. Bhatia on these "nano antennas" as they are named that made from gold particles that when injected in blood localize to the cancerous tissue by passing through the leaky blood vessels in tumor niches. Once there, the antennas are heated by non-invasive near-infrared radiations. This approach kills 100% of tumors in mice, says Dr. Bhatia, in preclinical trials.

His second invention is the efficient drug delivery to tumors by first sending in the benign particles that "locate" the tumors. These navigator particles then send signals to what he calls "assassin" particles that then home in on the tumor and deliver the drug at concentrations that would otherwise be toxic to the normal tissues if administered systemically.

At age 28, Geoff, a Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology graduate student, has 8 patent applications, 19 publications and two companies, Nanopartz Inc. (www.nanopartz.com) and Resonance Therapeutics, to his credit.