The promise
Oct. 5th, 2012 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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shkrobiusв The promise
shkrobiusв The promiseSeveral years ago my mother died of a cancer. She lived only four months after her diagnosis, barely outliving my father. Her tumor was discovered too late. My maternal grandparents both died of the same cancer. Neither one of them lived to their mid-60s.
When mom died, I promised that I would do whatever it takes to help diagnosing and curing cancer at an earlier stage. It was a rush and stupid promise taken at a low point in my life. I did not know anything about the field. I had no idea how to fulfill this promise. Retrospectively I do not know why did I make it. I just did.
That fall, I was accidentally introduced to a UoC group developing new MRI methods in mice models. They had a chemical problem of mundane nature; they were medical people and did not know much chemistry. I was glad to help; in return they taught me the ABCs of MRI contrast agent development. It is one of the mysteries of our body that it confuses certain vanadyl complexes with insulin.
Our collaboration was a disaster. We did not get funded and rightly so. The project went nowhere and we parted our ways disappointed in each other.
A few years later I badly needed money and got funded to develop a new method for burial of nuclear waste. Do not ask me how I got into it. The idea was to use nanoporous collapsible glass that was cheaply made by acid leaching of the borate phase from borosilicate glass that microscopically segregates through spinodal decomposition (this is how oven glass kitchenware used to be made in a Vycor process that was invented many years ago at Dow Corning).
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v58/i3/p284_1
My approach was to decorate the surface of channels with organic ligands collecting radionuclides from dilute waste streams and then seal the sequestered ions at relatively low temperature in this porous glass matrix (such channels anneal below 1100 C). This project also went nowhere: I was not able to load enough material to make it a feasible approach. However, in the course of this project I developed methods for modification of glass to hold lanthanide ions on the surface. One of these ligands worked especially well by forming a strong complex. I did EXAFS and noticed that the ligand did not quite complete the coordination sphere, so a water molecule could reversibly attach to this ion. If the ion is paramagnetic, this exchange causes rapid nuclear relaxation of water protons. This relaxation is the basis for MRI detection. I promptly forgot about it; I had more pressing concerns on my mind. It was a curiosity.
Two months later I was looking at posters and met a bored student presenting a failed project on porous silica microparticles decorated with gadolinium ions (to make them into an MRI contrasting agent). Such particles can double as drug delivery vehicles: one can observe where the drug goes. I did not know anything about such particles. The results were disappointing. Suddenly I've remembered my ligand. His professor was a smart fellow. When I explained him the possibility he jumped right on it. I thought it would take a lot of convincing. It did not take any convincing. He started the next month. He spent years trying to solve this problem.
To cut the story short, last spring he and a UC Berkeley group showed that microparticles dressed with my ligand and loaded with gadolinium ions make the most efficient MRI contrasting agent known to date. There will be a multimillion NIH clinical trial and possible commercialization within a few years.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ja302183w
I'll receive no royalties and no recognition, as I did not patent the ligand; the paper is in the open. I have no regrets about that. I had nothing to do with it.
It is anyone's guess how the trials will pan out (I am not involved at this late stage), yet I am confident that it will work out fine. I know it will.
I've failed miserably. And yet it is through these blunders that I've fulfilled the promise I despaired to fulfill.
I know better than anyone what I am capable and what I am not capable of doing. I couldnt've done it myself.
That fall, I was accidentally introduced to a UoC group developing new MRI methods in mice models. They had a chemical problem of mundane nature; they were medical people and did not know much chemistry. I was glad to help; in return they taught me the ABCs of MRI contrast agent development. It is one of the mysteries of our body that it confuses certain vanadyl complexes with insulin.
Our collaboration was a disaster. We did not get funded and rightly so. The project went nowhere and we parted our ways disappointed in each other.
A few years later I badly needed money and got funded to develop a new method for burial of nuclear waste. Do not ask me how I got into it. The idea was to use nanoporous collapsible glass that was cheaply made by acid leaching of the borate phase from borosilicate glass that microscopically segregates through spinodal decomposition (this is how oven glass kitchenware used to be made in a Vycor process that was invented many years ago at Dow Corning).
http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v58/i3/p284_1
My approach was to decorate the surface of channels with organic ligands collecting radionuclides from dilute waste streams and then seal the sequestered ions at relatively low temperature in this porous glass matrix (such channels anneal below 1100 C). This project also went nowhere: I was not able to load enough material to make it a feasible approach. However, in the course of this project I developed methods for modification of glass to hold lanthanide ions on the surface. One of these ligands worked especially well by forming a strong complex. I did EXAFS and noticed that the ligand did not quite complete the coordination sphere, so a water molecule could reversibly attach to this ion. If the ion is paramagnetic, this exchange causes rapid nuclear relaxation of water protons. This relaxation is the basis for MRI detection. I promptly forgot about it; I had more pressing concerns on my mind. It was a curiosity.
Two months later I was looking at posters and met a bored student presenting a failed project on porous silica microparticles decorated with gadolinium ions (to make them into an MRI contrasting agent). Such particles can double as drug delivery vehicles: one can observe where the drug goes. I did not know anything about such particles. The results were disappointing. Suddenly I've remembered my ligand. His professor was a smart fellow. When I explained him the possibility he jumped right on it. I thought it would take a lot of convincing. It did not take any convincing. He started the next month. He spent years trying to solve this problem.
To cut the story short, last spring he and a UC Berkeley group showed that microparticles dressed with my ligand and loaded with gadolinium ions make the most efficient MRI contrasting agent known to date. There will be a multimillion NIH clinical trial and possible commercialization within a few years.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ja302183w
I'll receive no royalties and no recognition, as I did not patent the ligand; the paper is in the open. I have no regrets about that. I had nothing to do with it.
It is anyone's guess how the trials will pan out (I am not involved at this late stage), yet I am confident that it will work out fine. I know it will.
I've failed miserably. And yet it is through these blunders that I've fulfilled the promise I despaired to fulfill.
I know better than anyone what I am capable and what I am not capable of doing. I couldnt've done it myself.
