By Tom Henderson
Small Times Senior Writer
LAKE LINDEN, Mich., July 23, 2001 — Thanks to the CIA, Frank Underdown Jr.’s dream of bringing nanotechnology to one of the most off-the-beaten-track places in the continental United States remains alive.
Just last week, Underdown said: “We are at a
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| Katsuo Kurabayashi, University of Michigan researcher, is using the work of Frank Underdown, founder of the Keweenaw Nanoscience Center, to develop prototypes of MEMS-based biosensors for detecting a variety of microorganisms in water. |
Today, the Keweenaw Nanoscience Center is alive and well. Underdown and University of Michigan (U-M) researcher Katsuo Kurabayashi, despite being at opposite ends of the state, have joined forces to develop biosensors under a CIA grant, which Kurabayashi hopes to augment with an upcoming grant application to the National Science Foundation.
Lake Linden is a hardscrabble former mining town in the Keweenaw Peninsula, which thrusts 60 miles into Lake Superior, at the far north of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.).
Short of northern Maine, perhaps, or Alaska, this is about as far remote as you can get in America. The nearest freeway is hundreds of miles away. Michigan’s economic engine of southeastern Michigan is 600 miles away. Small turboprops serve the regional airport and the few flights out a day are often sold out.
A century ago, Copper was king here. Copper barons built huge, sprawling houses. Today, the copper is played out and the mines have been long closed. Towns up and down the peninsula are nearly ghost towns and unemployment is the highest in the state.
Lake Linden is a few miles northeast from the peninsula’s biggest city, Houghton, home of Michigan Technological University, a top engineering school and by far the region’s biggest employer. The school employs 1,429; the biggest private employer is Wal-Mart, with 184.
In 1968, Lake Linden seemed destined for ghost-town status, too, when the local mine closed for good. But the town hung in there. Today, it is home to several high-tech enterprises, including the Keweenaw Nanoscience Center.
NEED FOR NANOPARTICLE MANIPULATION
Kurabayashi, who joined the U-M faculty last January after getting his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Stanford University, has been working with two U-M colleagues to develop prototypes of MEMS-based biosensors for detecting a variety of microorganisms in water.
They have applied for an NSF grant for that work and expect word on approval in the next month or two.
“My new research thrust is into nanotechnology,” he says, which is how he came to partner with Underdown. The CIA awarded Kurabayashi a two-year grant for $100,000 a year in May, with an option for a third year. Needing research assistance, Kurabayashi placed a classified ad in Physics Today magazine.
Underdown, looking for contract R&D work to support his fledgling business, responded. The two met recently in Ann Arbor, Mich., and agreed on a partnership.
“Dr. Underdown’s technology is well suited to developing these new biosensors,” says Kurabayashi. “The position I have hired him for is officially a post-doctoral fellowship, but I regard him as my colleague.”
Underdown is able to use laser beams to propel nanoscale particles down a glass fiber and onto a silicon-based substrate. “This technique would allow us to pattern protein molecules onto a targeted area of a substrate,” says Kurabayashi. “If we can do that, we can fabricate a biosensor using MEMS technology.”
Like others before, Kurabayashi urged Underdown to consider abandoning his far-off headquarters. “The Upper Peninsula? It’s the other side of the world. It’s outside the loop,” he says. “It’s maybe not the best place to grow his business. I’ve encouraged him to move his business to Ann Arbor. Silicon Valley? That is a hot spot. Texas is hot. But the U.P.?”
It’s anything but hot, metaphorically and according to the thermometer. Underdown needs venture-capital money, for example, but that’s sorely lacking up here.
Still, says Kurabayashi: “This is win-win for us. This will help him develop his business. And he’ll help me develop my biosensors.” Combining nanotechnology with MEMS, we can develop some interesting devices.”
‘THIS PLACE IS HOME’
Underdown and the Keweenaw are an unlikely match. For one thing, he is relatively new to academia, having spent much of his career as a non-degreed electrical engineer in the American West, working for a variety of firms in Arizona and California. Though he spent much of his childhood in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, more than a decade in deserts isn’t the best way to prepare for winters where 20 feet of snow is commonplace.
So, how did he get to be so passionate about the place?
After a layoff, he decided he needed a degree and graduated with a bachelor’s in physics from Central Michigan University (CMU) in 1990. He got his masters from CMU in nuclear physics in 1995 and his doctorate in 1999 from Michigan Tech in atomic, molecular and optical physics.
That was the same year he founded the Nanoscience Center. He pays the bills by teaching as an adjunct professor at Northern Michigan University, commuting 115 miles each way to Marquette, the U.P.’s largest city, and by consulting. Last year, he taught six courses one semester at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, leaving on his five-hour drive Monday at 6 a.m. and departing for home Friday night.
“This is a great place to raise a family. It’s crime free. The cost of housing is inexpensive,” says Underdown, who has four children. Their house has four bedrooms, two baths, a built-in sauna, an attached garage, a combination barn and woodshed and sits on two lots ringed with cedar and apple trees. It cost $63,000 three years ago.
And the weather?
“We cross-country ski every day for exercise. And then there’s the other exercise we get, the U.P. workout: Shoveling a lot of snow. Last winter was interesting, to say the least. I was up on the garage five times shoveling snow off. And we had water damage to the house from an ice dam on the roof.
“But this place is home. My wife and I were gypsies and free spirits. We moved on average of every two years as contracts would come and go when I was an engineer. This is the longest we’ve ever been anywhere.
“I count time here by the winters, and we’ve been here five winters. Someone once told me, `When you’ve been here two winters, you’re a native.’ I’m a native.”
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CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Tom Henderson at [email protected] or call 734-528-6292.