Swager awarded Lemelson-MIT Prize for advancements in molecular wires

Swager displays Nomadics’ Fido Explosives Detector, a bomb-detection device based on his amplified chemical sensors. (Photo: Business Wire)

Apr. 3, 2007 — Dr. Timothy M. Swager has been awarded the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, considered by many the most-prestigious cash prize for invention in the United States. “The originality, practicality and timeliness of Dr. Swager’s inventions made him a stand-out candidate,” said Merton Flemings, director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. “For instance, soldiers and Marines in Iraq are already benefiting from his explosive-detection inventions, and his molecular wire inventions will likely find application in a wide range of healthcare, environmental and security areas.”

Among his many inventions, Swager and his colleagues invented amplifying fluorescent polymers that can attract nitro aromatic molecules, a class of chemicals typically used in explosives. In most molecular sensors, the strength of the emitted signal is proportional to the number of target molecules reaching the sensor. Therefore, they are usually not sensitive enough to detect very small trace amounts of the target substance.

Swager, John D. MacArthur Professor of Chemistry and department head at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reasoned that if he designed a polymer chain that would carry a signal except when a single target molecule struck the chain, he would have an extraordinarily sensitive detector. Thus, if the target molecule were TNT, a bomb detection device could be constructed from the polymer. “Imagine a string of holiday lights,” Swager explained. “If I break one bulb, then that strand goes down. Moreover, imagine if I wire a bunch of strands together. If I break a single bulb in any one of them, then that brings the whole thing down. That broken bulb represents the TNT molecule or vapor you’re trying to find. The interruption tells you something’s there.” The TNT molecules can bind anywhere along the polymer chain.

In 2001, Swager licensed his patented polymer technology to Nomadics, now a unit of ICx Technologies, for use in that company’s Fido Explosives Detector, so named for its ability to simulate a bomb-sniffing dog. “Within some classes of chemicals, it can actually smell as well as a dog,” Swager said. American soldiers in Iraq are using Fido devices attached to a robotic platform for deployment to hard-to-reach and dangerous areas, or as a portable, hand-held monitor to analyze people, clothing and automobiles.

In 2005, Fido earned the U.S. Army Greatest Invention Award. According to General (Retired) Paul J. Kern, the former U.S. Army senior military advisor in Research, Development and Acquisition, “¿one could easily estimate that hundreds of individuals have avoided serious injury or death as a result of Swager’s chemical inventions.”

In addition to their use in explosives detection, Swager’s molecular wire sensors have many other possible applications, from detecting environmental pollutants to early-stage cancer cells.

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