Solstice wins MIT Clean Energy Prize with efficient metering for developing nations

Solstice Energy Solutions won the MIT Clean Energy Prize April 14 for its plan to bring an energy-metering program to Nigerian households, which currently rely on manually operated diesel generators when the country’s power grid fails. Co-founder Ugwem Eneyo grew up in Nigeria, and the cause is personal.

“As a middle child, I remember having to go to my backyard to turn on a generator multiple times a day,” she told the panel. “I remember the sound of those generators whirring.”

To avoid this inconvenience, many households prefer to simply let generators run, with little grasp of the end cost or resulting pollution. Many households spend up to $3,000 each month, Eneyo said.

Solstice, founded at Stanford University, plans to sell Shyft, a smart meter and transfer switch hybrid that allows users to meter, monitor, and control their power sources from a mobile app. Shyft would replace the manual changeover switches used by so many households. Unlike their competitors, the product isn’t simply an automatic transfer switch, which automatically clicks on when the grid fails. Instead, users can choose when to start up their generator, so they can reduce costs wherever possible. Eneyo estimates that users will decrease their energy costs by up to 30 percent.

“Think of it as a FitBit for energy consumption,” she said.

Eneyo and her team will use the $100,000 prize money to launch a beta phase and begin selling the product next year.

MIT's Infinite Cooling won $60,000 for its plan to reduce water consumption at power plants, which are the largest consumers of freshwater in the United States. The startup aims to use electric fields to capture and reintroduce water to power plant cooling systems, thereby conserving and reducing power companies’ water costs.

Two remaining finalists were awarded $20,000 apiece. Joro, with a team of students from Harvard University and MIT, is a technology platform that enables users to track their carbon impact in real time through their smartphones, making choices to save money and reduce emissions. The startup aims to create an incentive-driven social network of like-minded users who can measure their output against friends. Flux Technologies, based at the University of California at Berkeley, focuses on efficient hydrogen and natural gas purification using advanced composite membranes.

The four finalists were culled from 17 semifinalists. In its 10th year, the MIT Clean Energy Prize is the nation’s oldest and largest clean energy entrepreneurship competition.

Judges included National Grid’s Kristian Bodek, GE Ventures’ Daniel Hullah, MassCEC’s Stephen Pike, The Engine’s Katie Rae, and Greentown Labs' Emily Reichert. The event was held at the MIT Media Lab.

de MIT News http://ift.tt/2q2eUIl

MIT NEWDIGS hosts design lab on new gene and oncology therapy financing models

The MIT NEW Drug Development Paradigms (NEWDIGS) initiative, an international biomedical innovation “think and do tank” involving a range of stakeholders in the health care system, hosted a collaborative design lab to explore ways to make potentially curative — but expensive — therapies available to patients as they emerge from development. Sixty-nine people, representing pharmaceutical companies, patient advocacy groups, payers, health care providers, and policymakers, participated.

The NEWDIGS Design Lab, held April 11-13 at MIT, was part of an ongoing NEWDIGS project called Financing and Reimbursement of Cures in the U.S. (FoCUS). The project was started to help parties in the health care system develop new financial models to support drug development, optimizing benefit from and access to new medicines for patients, while also ensuring the sustainability of pharmaceutical innovation.

The goal of the design lab was to identify adoption barriers and possible responses for two model gene therapy compounds and a hypothetical new oncology compound. They were chosen as cases to study because they represent classes of innovative therapies in the development pipeline that, while suggesting dramatic benefit to patients, may be too expensive to succeed under current financing and reimbursement schemes. The workshop also included “commons” sessions to allow for discussion about cross-cutting issues shared by both product classes. In order to encourage openness and collaboration in a safe harbor environment, the workshop was held under strict confidentiality terms and Chatham House Rule.

“In the design lab, we are innovating how we innovate,” said Gigi Hirsch, executive director of the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation. “FoCUS participants will help develop realistic solutions to a key problem: How do we provide timely access for patients to very promising but costly treatments, in ways that are consistent with all stakeholders’ goals?”

“We’re excited to participate in this multi-stakeholder work,” said a delegate of the biotech company developing one of the case study compounds. “The design lab was a safe place to discuss the complicated financing issues around [these products].”

FoCUS working groups formed last fall presented their work in the design lab, receiving feedback from participants to help them develop financing plans for “pressure testing” over the next six months. The subsequent goal of the workgroups will be to refine the models for real world pilot projects, designed to fuel scalable solutions and to inform policy recommendations. 

To make effective progress, NEWDIGS makes sure there is strong representation of many perspectives. “The patient is at the forefront of everyone’s interest, and we’re not demonizing one another,” said a representative of a patient advocacy group. “[Our community] needs to be part of the solution, and this gives us a seat at the table.”

Open discussion among people holding different perspectives is key to the design lab methodology. One participant, a career executive for payer organizations, said, “I gained perspective from the developer and patient advocate points of view. I continue to be amazed how much we need to learn from each other and appreciate the opportunity to collaborate across stakeholders.”

Members participating in the design lab recognize the complex hurdles ahead, but remain optimistic about progress. “Considering the significant clinical, operational, business, and analytical talent participating in the design lab, I have tremendously high and optimistic expectations from future design lab sessions,” said a representative of a major insurer. “The collective assimilation of experience, education, energy, and passion within our group will likely deliver a multiplier impact — with future healthcare delivery outcomes that are both beneficial and rewarding.”

According to Hirsch, “FoCUS gives our community of healthcare players a platform to iterate solutions that are practical for all those involved in the pharmaceutical innovation chain. This week’s design lab helped us make progress on these incredibly complex challenges, and we look forward to the pilot projects that may emerge in the coming months."

de MIT News http://ift.tt/2q3m2XI

Letter regarding the new director of MIT’s Washington Office

The following email was sent today to the MIT community by President L. Rafael Reif.

To the members of the MIT community,

I share the news that MIT's Washington Office will soon have a new leader: policy advocate David Goldston. The role was previously held by Bill Bonvillian, who stepped down in January.

A native New Yorker, David has worked in Washington for more than 30 years, both inside and outside government, from serving as chief of staff for the House Committee on Science, to his most recent role as director of government affairs and director of the Center for Policy Advocacy for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Drawing on his deep knowledge of federal science policy and the people who shape it, David is primed to advocate for government policies that allow science and technology to thrive, as well as for using science to shape sound policy in general. He has extensive experience in bridging partisan policy divides, beginning as an aide to a Republican congressman who was a leading voice on the environment. An adjunct professor of science policy at Georgetown, David is also eager to help our students learn how Washington works.

You can learn more about David's expertise and experience on MIT News.

MIT's Washington office has a singular record of advocating for the nation's research and educational enterprise generally, and of helping to shape important new policy directions, from advanced manufacturing to learning science. In this complex time, we need more than ever a strong and influential presence in DC.

I look forward to working with David in the town he knows so well, as we strive to make the case for all that MIT represents. Please join me in welcoming him to our team – and in thanking the advisory committee to the search, led by Professor Claude Canizares, which brought David to our attention.

Sincerely,

L. Rafael Reif

de MIT News http://ift.tt/2osQHh5

David Goldston to lead MIT Washington Office

David Goldston, a policy advocate with decades of experience on Capitol Hill, has been named the new director of the MIT’s Washington Office, effective May 1.

The appointment was announced today in a letter to the MIT community from President L. Rafael Reif.

“Drawing on his deep knowledge of federal science policy and the people who shape it, David is primed to advocate for government policies that allow science and technology to thrive, as well as for using science to shape sound policy in general,” Reif says.

Goldston will succeed William Bonvillian, who stepped down from the position in January after 11 years of service.

“I look forward to working with David in the town he knows so well, as we strive to make the case for all that MIT represents,” Reif says, thanking the advisory committee to the search, led by Professor Claude Canizares, for its work in the process.

Formed in 1991 as part of MIT’s Office of the President, the Washington Office facilitates a two-way flow of information between the Institute and Washington. The office shares findings by MIT experts with decision makers in the White House, Congress, national research and development agencies, and other Washington organizations. The office also informs MIT’s leadership and faculty of federal policy developments relevant to science, engineering, and innovation.

“A large part of the appeal of this job to me is the range of activities that the Washington Office engages in,” Goldston says. “The office isn’t narrowly lobbying for MIT. It’s concerned about a wide spectrum of issues including those that affect the education community and the science community broadly.”

Goldston says he was also attracted to the job because of the opportunity it offers to work with MIT students; he cites MIT’s Science Policy Initiative, through which the Washington Office engages students in the policymaking process, as an example.

Goldston will take the helm of the Washington Office at time when the future of federal funding for R&D — already a significantly smaller percentage of GDP than it was during the 1960s and ’70s — is more uncertain than ever. President Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year includes steep cuts to many federal agencies that fund research in the physical and social sciences, engineering, and other areas. Such a budget “would damage the nation’s position as a global leader in science and innovation,” Reif wrote in a March 27 letter to the MIT community.

Under Goldston’s leadership, the MIT Washington Office will continue to engage with policymakers about the scientific evidence underlying challenging policy issues, while encouraging the support of science, engineering, and higher education.

“MIT is especially well-placed in Washington because of the nature of its reputation as both an intellectual powerhouse and as a university built on technical expertise,” he says.

This is a compelling time to join MIT, Goldston says: “I think for universities, figuring out what their posture in Washington is and the way forward is more of a challenge maybe than it’s ever been, certainly more than it’s been recently.”

Goldston acknowledges that today’s polarized political climate adds difficulty to the work of the MIT Washington Office, but he notes that he’s worked with both political parties over the course of his career. “I’ve learned how to work with people on both sides of the aisle,” he says.

Before coming to MIT, Goldston was the director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where he coordinated all of the nonprofit organization’s interactions with the federal government and helped shape public communications on federal issues. He joined NRDC in 2009, and in 2014 he also became the director of the Council’s Center for Policy Advocacy, a role that included overseeing the NRDC Action Fund.

Currently an adjunct professor of science policy at Georgetown Unversity, Goldston has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard University and Princeton University. His courses have focused on the role science plays in policymaking, and other issues at the intersection between science and policy. Goldston also wrote a monthly column about these topics called “Party of One” for Nature, from 2007 to 2009.

From 2001 to 2006, he served as the chief of staff for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science. In this position oversaw a staff of 40 with jurisdiction over federal science funding agencies including NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, among others.

Goldston graduated from Cornell University in 1978 with a BA in history and completed coursework for a PhD in American history at the University of Pennsylvania. He began his career on Capitol Hill in 1983, serving over the years as a press secretary, legislative director, and Science Committee staffer for Sherwood Boehlert, then a Republican congressman from upstate New York and a leading voice for science and for the environment in the Congress.

de MIT News http://ift.tt/2oGFqoE

Using light to propel water

A new system developed by engineers at MIT could make it possible to control the way water moves over a surface, using only light. This advance may open the door to technologies such as microfluidic diagnostic devices whose channels and valves could be reprogrammed on the fly, or field systems that could separate water from oil at a drilling rig, the researchers say.

The system, reported in the journal Nature Communications, was developed by MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering Kripa Varanasi, School of Engineering Professor of Teaching Innovation Gareth McKinley, former postdoc Gibum Kwon, graduate student Divya Panchanathan, former research scientist Seyed Mahmoudi, and Mohammed Gondal at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia.

The initial goal of the project was to find ways of separating oil from water, for example, to treat the frothy mixture of briny water and crude oil produced from certain oil wells. The more thoroughly these mixtures are intermingled — the finer the droplets are — the harder they are to separate. Sometimes electrostatic methods are used, but these are energy-intensive and don’t work when the water is highly saline, as is often the case. Instead, the team explored the use of “photoresponsive” surfaces, whose responses to water can be altered by exposure to light.

By creating surfaces whose interactions with water — a property known as wettability — could be activated by light, the researchers found they could directly separate the oil from the water by causing individual droplets of water to coalesce and spread across the surface. The more the water droplets fuse together, the more they separate from the oil.

Photoresponsive materials have been widely studied and used; one example is the active ingredient in most sunscreens, titanium dioxide, also known as titania. But most of these materials, including titania, respond primarily to ultraviolet light and hardly at all to visible light. Yet only about 5 percent of sunlight is in the ultraviolet range. So the researchers figured out a way to treat the titania surface to make it responsive to visible light.

They did so by first using a layer-by-layer deposition technique to build up a film of polymer-bound titania particles on a layer of glass. Then they dip-coated the material with a simple organic dye. The resulting surface turned out to be highly responsive to visible light, producing a change in wettability when exposed to sunlight that is much greater than that of the titania itself. When activated by sunlight, the material proved very effective at “demulsifying” the oil-water mixture — getting the water and oil to separate from each other.

“We were inspired by the work in photovoltaics, where dye sensitization was used to improve the efficiency of absorption of solar radiation,” says Varansi. “The coupling of the dye to titania particles allows for the generation of charge carriers upon light illumination. This creates an electric potential difference to be established between the surface and the liquid upon illumination, and leads to a change in the wetting properties.”

“Saline water spreads out on our surface under illumination, but oil doesn’t,” says Kwon, who is now an assistant professor at the University of Kansas. “We found that virtually all the seawater will spread out on the surface and get separated from crude oil, under visible light.”

The same effect could also be used to drive droplets of water across a surface, as the team demonstrated in a series of experiments. By selectively changing the material’s wettability using a moving beam of light, a droplet can be directed toward the more wettable area, propelling it in any desired direction with great precision. Such systems could be designed to make microfluidic devices without built-in boundaries or structures. The movement of liquid — for example a blood sample in a diagnostic lab-on-a-chip — would be entirely controlled by the pattern of illumination being projected onto it.

“By systematically studying the relationship between the energy levels of the dye and the wettability of the contacting liquid, we have come up with a framework for the design of these light-guided liquid manipulation systems,” Varanasi says. “By choosing the right kind of dye, we can create a significant change in droplet dynamics. It’s light-induced motion – a touchless motion of droplets.”

The switchable wettability of these surfaces has another benefit: They can be largely self-cleaning. When the surface is switched from water-attracting (hydrophilic) to water-repelling (hydrophobic), any water on the surface gets driven off, carrying with it any contaminants that may have built up.

Since the photoresponsive effect is based on the dye coating, it can be highly tuned by selecting from among the thousands of available organic dyes. All of the materials involved in the process are widely available, inexpensive, commodity materials, the researchers say, and the processes for making them are commonplace.

The research was supported by the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, through the Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at MIT and KFUPM.

de MIT News http://ift.tt/2pZP7QY

Four from MIT named 2017 Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows

Danielle Mai and Freddy Nguyen from the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering, along with Liela Bayeh and Julianne Troiano of the Department of Chemistry, were awarded 2017 Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowships. The two-year, competitive program will support each researcher’s continuing work in their corresponding labs.

Danielle Mai of the Brad Olsen lab is developing bioinspired polymers for rapid and selective removal of biological toxins. This technology could critically enable bioseparations ranging from biotoxin removal to blood-based diagnostics to therapeutic monoclonal antibody purification. After her postdoc, she plans to continue her research at the intersection of polymer science, biophysics, and materials engineering as a new investigator. She earned her PhD in chemical engineering in 2016 from the University of Illinois.

Freddy Nguyen, a member of the Michael Strano lab, is working to develop nanoscale molecular sensors for probing cancer tumors and their microenvironments. He would like to implant nanosensors inside tumors to measure their response, at the molecular level, to various cancer therapies such as chemotherapeutics and radiation therapy. In 2016, he earned his medical degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and in 2015 received a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Liela Bayeh is currently a researcher in Stephen Buchwald's lab in the Department of Chemistry. She is developing new catalytic processes for organic synthesis using Earth-abundant base metal catalysts. These new processes would potentially provide streamlined routes to valuable commodity and fine chemicals, as well as pharmaceuticals. After her postdoctoral work, she plans to pursue a career in academic research where she can independently study and develop new methodologies for organic synthesis. Bayeh earned her PhD in organic chemistry in 2016 from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.

Julianne Troiano of the Gabriela Schlau-Cohen lab is working on uncovering the nanoscale structural dynamics behind the initial steps of bacterial chemotaxis. Through chemotaxis bacteria are able to identify and move towards favorable conditions for growth and proliferation, making chemotaxis a key initial step in the development of a bacterial infection. As bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotic treatments, a mechanistic understanding of chemotaxis could provide new strategies to combat bacterial infections at an early stage in development. Troiano plans to seek a position at an academic institution where she can establish a research and teaching program that reflects her passion for interdisciplinary research and science communication. She earned her PhD from Northwestern University in 2016.

Said Nguyen, “I am very thankful to the Arnold O. Beckman Foundation for this wonderful fellowship opportunity that will significantly contribute to my professional development to becoming an independent physician-scientist as I work to develop my own research direction.”

His colleagues share his appreciation for this recognition.

“The Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellows Award provides independence in my current research,” said Mai. “The diverse network of peers and mentors and flexibility to cultivate my research vision are assets as I prepare to apply for tenure-track faculty positions.”

de MIT News http://ift.tt/2peVDWd

From fieldwork to the big screen

“How can we reduce the environmental damage that agriculture so often causes and support the livelihood of farmers, all while continuing to feed the growing world population?”

This question was central to the winning entry at the fourth annual Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Video Competition. The video, “UAVs in Precision Agriculture,” produced by Alexa Jaeger, a junior in CEE and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, explored how students participating in Traveling Research Environmental eXperiences (TREX) are using unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor soil quality across crop fields. By comparing the UAV images with soil samples, they are seeking to determine if this inexpensive method is a reliable way to gather crop health data across farms.

This year’s video competition challenged members of the CEE community to make a video that shows how Course 1 makes an impact on a global scale. Community members responded by sharing their creative approaches to explaining their fieldwork, lab research, and humanitarian aid trips. On April 13, CEE hosted a film screening of all the entries, complete with popcorn and movie theater candy.  

“In CEE we see the world as our classroom. From research conducted in labs experiments here at MIT, to fieldwork around the world, Course 1 students are encouraged to apply what they learn to real-world applications” said Markus Buehler, head of CEE and the McAfee Professor of Engineering. “The video competition offers a unique way for members of the CEE community to showcase the variety of global approaches they take to solve the world’s major issues.”

Joining CEE as guest judges were Denny Freeman, dean for undergraduate education and professor of electrical engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Jim Champy ’63, SM ’65, author and business consultant; and Erin Schenck, managing director of the MIT-Germany Program. The trio was tasked with evaluating each entry based on the global research, scientific inquiry, and engineering action, as well as how much passion and excitement was evident in the film.

“The videos were very compelling and cleverly produced,” Champy said. “They clearly presented the objectives of the projects and the excitement in their work. I was very impressed with our students' ability to express themselves though this medium.”

Freeman, Champy and Schenck awarded Jaeger’s “UAVs in Precision Agriculture” the first place award, which comes with a $1,000 prize. Attendees of the competition also gave Jaeger the People’s Choice award, which comes with an additional $100 prize.

“I wanted to share the global impact of TREX because it is so cool that undergraduates in Course 1 can participate in research that has such global and important applications. It isn't just a few undergrads either; anyone can take this class and participate. It was such a great experience learning about environmental fieldwork,” Jaeger said.

CEE senior Kathy Dieppa won second place and a $500 prize for her video “Back to Basics: Improving Access to Water and Sanitation in El Salvador.” Dieppa documented her Independent Activities Period service trip with MIT D-Lab to El Salvador, where she and fellow MIT students repaired water reservoirs, shared sanitation best-practices, and built latrines.

“In our society, it is often easy to forget that there are so many people in the world who are without the basic necessities that we often take for granted,” Dieppa said. “It's important to show that CEE research tackles some of the world's largest and most fundamental problems.”

The third-place prize and $250 was given to graduate students Tiziana Smith and Chi Feng for their entry, “Research for a Hungry World.” The video explained how by using data and simulations, researchers can understand how farming impacts the environment on local and global scales.

“As graduate students, we are trained in communicating our work to scientific audiences in longer forms like papers, presentations, and posters,” Smith said. “A two-minute video for general audiences really forces you to identify the essence of your work, and think of creative ways to verbalize and visualize it. The process is challenging, but also a lot of fun!”

de MIT News http://ift.tt/2peGGmL