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ABOUT THE INSTITUTE
News of the JFI
Chemistry professor receives Dreyfus
November 1, 2001
Rustem Ismagilov, Assistant Professor in Chemistry, is one of
11 scientists nationwide to receive a 2001 New Faculty Award from
the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation of New York City.
The five-year, $40,000 award provides funding for new faculty
members at the start of their research and teaching careers.
Ismagilov studies the chemical complexity of biological systems
that are largely governed by the interactions between multiple
chemical reactions. He uses microfabrication and microfluidics
as synthetic tools with which to control systems of chemical reactions
and interactions among them.
Microfabrication is the technique for making structures thinner
than a human hair, including networks of channels that can transport
fluids. The study and use of these channels is called microfluidics.
“Microfluidics-like techniques are responsible for the success
of the Human Genome Project and the fact that it was completed
10 years early,” Ismagilov said.
One long-term goal of this research is to provide experimental
tools for understanding the biochemical complexity that is emerging
from genomics and proteomics––the effort to map the
human genome and its proteins. Another goal is to design intelligent
microsystems that use multiple interacting organic and biochemical
reactions to detect, transmit, amplify and analyze chemical signals.
Ismagilov also is interested in the principles that govern the
generation of motion in organic material on the small scale and
how these principles might change as organic materials shrink
to the molecular scale.
He is developing guidelines for the design of nanometer-scale
organic materials that can change shape under the influence of
electric fields, and for design of machines the size of molecules.
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