当工程学和科学创新变成流行文化

猜猜看，以下几件事有何共同点？

·更“人性化”的实验室老鼠

·片上显微成像技术

·可自动换档的轮椅

·更有效的地雷与IED探测

这些都是赢得2011 Lemelson创新奖的研发成果。如果你一向担心创新与工科的前景，现在大可放心了。每一位2011 Lemelson创新奖得主不仅展现出令人惊叹的创造力与技术创新，甚至当我们在此讨论之际，其中的许多人可能已经开始创业。

美国麻省理工学院(MIT)研究生Alice A.Chen以更具“人性化”(humanizing)的白老鼠来改善动物对于药物反应的研究，获得了Lemelson-MIT创新奖与3万美元奖金。MIT声明中称：

…由于动物与人类的肝脏活动明显不同，人体临床前所进行的动物试验通常很少涉及对于人体的毒性反应。据Chen表示，她所发明的老鼠模型“可被视为缩小版的病人，因为它具有经组织工程化的肝脏，在很多方面都能表现出像人类肝脏一样的反应”，例如肝脏如何分解药物以及对于有毒药物的反应等。Chen希望透过这一更贴近人体环境的小老鼠模型最终将可为药物试验带来更安全、更低成本且更有效率的途径。

获得Lemelson-MIT CalTech加州理工学院学生奖(奖金3万美元)的郑国安(Guoan Zheng)则开发出一种芯片上显微成像技术，以实现更多潜在应用，包括改善开发中国家对于疟疾的诊断以及其它经血液传播的疾病。郑国安说这款微型显微镜的成本仅需1.5美元。

加州理工学院所发布的消息指出，电子工程(EE)系学生郑国安：

…对于将互补金属氧化物半导体(CMOS)技术与影像处理、电脑视觉、微流体整合，以及针对下一代低成本生物医学成像与传感器设计的纳米技术，均展现出浓厚兴趣。他目前正进行的三项发明都致力于改善发展中国家改善疾病诊断。

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另一名加州理工学院电子工程学系的学生施文典(Wendian Shi)在决赛时赢得1万美元奖金。他得奖的研究为一种开中的“μ Cyto”便携式片上实验室系统，适用于为定点护理(POC)诊断确认白细胞数目。

Lemelson-MIT伊利诺伊州(Illinois)冠军得主是Scott Daigle，他的公司IntelliWheels为轮椅开发了一种自动换档系统，可使轮椅使用者的生活变得更轻松。

Lemelson-MIT伦斯勒理工学院(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)学生奖得主Benjamin Clough则以增强兆赫兹的音效获此殊荣。根据新闻发布，Clough：

...开发出一种新颖的方法，能监测隐藏在不可见等离子脉冲中的兆赫频谱资讯。该学院博士研究生发表的这种声波技术极具前景，能让研究者以强大的兆赫技术进行远距离侦测隐藏爆炸物、化学药品及其它危险物品。

这些研究成果真是令人称奇。不知你和你的同事们过去在学校期间也参与过这一类的研究吗？你能想像工程学的课程在这么短的时间内已有如此大的进展吗？

点击参考原文：Why the future will rock: Lemelson winners announced

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Why the future will rock: Lemelson winners announced

Brian Fuller

What do the following things have in common?

Lab mice that act more human

On-chip microscopy imaging

Automatic gear shifting for wheel chairs

Better mine and IED detection

They each won a 2011 Lemelson prize. And if you’re worried about the future of innovation and engineering, you can stop now. Not only did each winner show astonishing creativity and technical innovation, many are building their own businesses as we speak.

MIT’s Alice A. Chen (below) won the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT prize for her work in “humanizing” mice to improve animal studies of drug interactions. According to the MIT announcement:

...because of stark differences between animal and human liver activity, pre-clinical animal screens commonly under-report human toxicities. According to Chen, the mouse “becomes a miniature patient with a tissue-engineered liver that behaves like a human’s in many ways,” including how the liver breaks down drugs and responds to toxic drug products. Chen’s hope is that her humanized mouse model will ultimately lead to a safer, less expensive and more efficient path for drug testing.

The winner of the Lemelson-MIT CalTech award ($30,000), Guoan Zheng (right), developed an on-chip microscopy imaging technology with many potential applications, including improved diagnostics for malaria and other blood-borne diseases in the developing world. Zheng says it’s basically a $1.50 microscope.

According to the CalTech announcement, Zheng, a graduate EE student:

...demonstrated his strong interest in the integration of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology with image processing, computer vision, microfluidics, and nanotechnology for the design of next-generation low-cost biomedical imaging and sensing devices. His three inventions are all aimed at improving disease diagnostics in the developing world.

Wendian “Leo” Shi, another EE graduate student at CalTech, won a $10,000 finalist price for his work developing the "μ Cyto," a portable lab-on-a-chip system for determining white blood cell counts for point-of-care diagnostics.

The Lemelson-MIT Illinois winner, Scott Daigle is helping make wheelchair operators’ lives easier by building an automatic gear-shifting system for wheel chairs through his company, IntelliWheels, Inc.

Lemelson-MIT Rensselaer Student Prize winner Benjamin Clough (below) won for his work with terahertz-enhanced acoustics. According to the announcement, Clough:

...developed a novel method for eavesdropping on terahertz information hidden in invisible plasma acoustic bursts. The doctoral student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has demonstrated a promising technique that employs sound waves to boost the distance from which researchers can use powerful terahertz technology to remotely detect hidden explosives, chemicals, and other dangerous materials.

This stuff is amazing. Were you and colleagues doing this back in the day when you were in school? Can you believe how far engineering curricula has come in such a short time?