Nano-wizard takes the prize

What do tiny circuits, medical tests and a $500,000 prize have in common? They all fall into the domain of one of the world's foremost nanotech researchers. Last week, Northwestern University chemist Chad Mirkin received this year's $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for "his revolutionary discoveries and sizable contributions" in the field of nanotechnology.

The prize is one of the richest rewards given to inventors, but by no means the only honor listed on Mirkin's Web page. The 45-year-old head of Northwestern's International Institute of Nanotechnology received the Feynman Prize in 2002, the Sackler Prize in 2003 and a long paragraph's worth of other awards.

Mirkin is the co-founder of two companies - NanoInk for lithography applications and Nanosphere for medical testing and treatment. He serves on President Obama's Council of Advisers for Science and Technology. He's the author of more than 380 manuscripts and more than 350 patent applications. He ranks No. 1 on the list of oft-cited nanoresearchers and No. 3 on the chemistry list.

Not everything that Mirkin touches immediately turns to gold nanoparticles: The companies he founded haven't generated huge profits just yet, and the nascent nanotech field is still facing questions about environmental and health effects.

But the technologies Mirkin pioneered are already being put to use: The diagnostic device that Nanosphere developed has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration and might eventually be used to detect the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. NanoInk's molecular-scale printing technique is being used to make printed circuits, fight drug counterfeiters and further stem cell research.

Mirkin thinks the Lemelson-MIT Prize will give his work - as well as nanotechnology in general - a big boost. "It draws a lot of visibility to us, and I think it is going to facilitate the development of the next set of technologies," he told me by telephone Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning in Singapore, where he was lecturing at a conference on materials science).

Here's an edited transcript of my Q&A with Mirkin:

Cosmic Log: How is it that a guy like yourself can be involved with nanolithography as well as medical testing? Does that say something about the breadth of nanotechnology?

Mirkin: It says something about the core premise of nanotechnology, and that is that one can learn how to build on the nanometer length scale. You can begin to build materials that have properties that can be used in any application, ranging from nanolithography in the semiconductor industry to molecular electronics to molecular diagnostics and ultimately therapeutics. So, one of the core challenges in nanotechnology is learning how to build on this scale.