Chad Mirkin

Chad A. Mirkin (born November 23, 1963) is an American chemist. He is the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly at Northwestern University.

Mirkin is known for his development of nanoparticle-based biodetection schemes, the invention of Dip-Pen Nanolithography (recently recognized by National Geographic as one of the top 100 scientific discoveries that changed the world), and contributions to supramolecular chemistry, nanoelectronics, and nanooptics. In 2010, he was listed as the most cited chemist in the world over the last decade in terms of total citations, the second highest most cited chemist in terms of impact factor, and the top most cited nanomedicine researcher. He is the only chemist to be elected into all three branches of the National Academies. He has published over 620 manuscripts (H-index =125) and has over 900 patents and patent applications (262 issued, over 90% licensed as of November 1, 2014). These discoveries and innovations have led to over 1800 commercial products that are being sold world-wide.

Chad

Coordinates: 15°N 19°E / 15°N 19°E / 15; 19

Chad (ⁱ/tʃæd/; Arabic: تشاد‎ Tshād; French: Tchad), officially the Republic of Chad (Arabic: جمهورية تشاد‎ Jumhūrīyat Tshād; French: République du Tchad), is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest and Niger to the west. It is the fifth largest country in Africa in terms of area.

Chad has several regions: a desert zone in the north, an arid Sahelian belt in the centre and a more fertile Sudanian Savanna zone in the south. Lake Chad, after which the country is named, is the largest wetland in Chad and the second-largest in Africa. N'Djamena, the capital, is the largest city. Chad is home to over 200 different ethnic and linguistic groups. Arabic and French are the official languages. Islam and Christianity are the most widely practiced religions.

Beginning in the 7th millennium BC, human populations moved into the Chadian basin in great numbers. By the end of the 1st millennium BC, a series of states and empires rose and fell in Chad's Sahelian strip, each focused on controlling the trans-Saharan trade routes that passed through the region. France conquered the territory by 1920 and incorporated it as part of French Equatorial Africa. In 1960, Chad obtained independence under the leadership of François Tombalbaye. Resentment towards his policies in the Muslim north culminated in the eruption of a long-lasting civil war in 1965. In 1979, the rebels conquered the capital and put an end to the south's hegemony. However, the rebel commanders fought amongst themselves until Hissène Habré defeated his rivals. He was overthrown in 1990 by his general Idriss Déby. Since 2003, the Darfur crisis in Sudan has spilt over the border and destabilised the nation, with hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees living in and around camps in eastern Chad.

Northwestern University

Northwestern University (NU) is a private research university with campuses in Evanston and Chicago in Illinois, United States, as well as Doha, Qatar. Composed of twelve schools and colleges, Northwestern offers 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees.

Northwestern was founded in 1851 by John Evans, for whom the City of Evanston is named, and eight other lawyers, businessmen and Methodist leaders. Its founding purpose was to serve the Northwest Territory, an area that today includes the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota. Instruction began in 1855; women were admitted in 1869. Today, the main campus is a 240-acre (97 ha) parcel in Evanston, along the shores of Lake Michigan just 12 miles north of downtown Chicago. The university's law, medical, and professional schools are located on a 25-acre (10 ha) campus in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood. In 2008, the university opened a campus in Education City, Doha, Qatar with programs in journalism and communication.

Dickson Prize

The Dickson Prize in Medicine and the Dickson Prize in Science were both established in 1969 by Joseph Z. Dickson and Agnes Fischer Dickson.

Dickson Prize in Medicine

The Dickson Prize in Medicine is awarded annually by the University of Pittsburgh, and recognizes US citizens who have made "significant, progressive contributions" to medicine. The award includes $50,000, a bronze medal, and the Dickson Prize Lecture. Receiving the Dickson Prize in Medicine is strongly correlated with receiving the Lasker Award and the Nobel Prize.

Spherical nucleic acid

Spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) – defined as structures which are an arrangement of densely packed, highly oriented nucleic acids in a spherical geometry – were first introduced in 1996 by the Mirkin group at Northwestern University. The unique arrangement and orientation of one-dimensional linear nucleic acids within this three-dimensional framework results in fundamentally new chemical, biological, and physical properties, which represent a paradigm shift in the use of nucleic acids for intracellular gene regulation, molecular diagnostics, and materials synthesis applications.

Structure and Function

The first SNA consisted of 3’ alkanethiol-terminated, single-stranded oligonucleotides (short DNA sequences) covalently attached to the surface of spherical gold nanoparticles. A dense nucleic acid loading was achieved through a series of salt additions, in which positively charged counterions were used to reduce electrostatic repulsion between adjacent negatively charged DNA strands and thereby enable more efficient DNA packing onto the nanoparticle surface.