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Nano scientist wins mega award- WSU researcher honored at White House event

Susmita Bose is just six years into her career creating incredibly small particles at Washington State University, but she’s gotten big recognition by the National Science Foundation.

Bose is developing nano-scale ceramic materials to make bone and dental implants more acceptable to the human body.

Hannelore Sudermann
Staff writer

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/allstories-news-story.asp?date=050504&ID=s1516611

The 35-year-old joins 19 other NSF-supported scientists in winning this year’s Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She was in Washington, D.C., with her family Tuesday to receive the honor at the White House.

The honor is the highest federal government award for scientists and researchers at the start of their careers. Bose accepted her award alongside faculty from Brown University, the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of Michigan.

"Of course it was a sweet surprise," she said last week from her book-lined office in Dana Hall on WSU’s Pullman campus. She got official word of the award two weeks a
go, but had an inkling for months, ever since White House security called for background information.

Since high school in India, Bose had a love of science. It may have been instilled in her by her mother, a physical science teacher. She followed that interest to the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, where she earned a master’s degree in chemistry.

She and her classmates moved with their professor to Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1992, where Bose started pursuing a doctorate. Leaving India was a major step.

"I am the first person in my family who actually came out of my state or my country," she said.

As Bose was working on her degree, her interests changed. "I realized I wanted to use my basic science in a more applicative field," she said. She turned to materials science and engineering, where she could apply her understanding of chemistry to creating substances with practical applications.

She came to WSU in 1998. Her focus here has been on improving bone implants using nanoscience to create ultrafine powder particles made of ceramic compositions.

Each particle of the powder can only be measured on a nano-scale. "It’s really, really, really small," said Bose. "It’s 2,000 times smaller than a human hair’s diameter."

But for Bose, that’s not small enough. "Our goal is actually to go even down from there."

Parts of bone are made of calcium phosphate. The ceramics Bose is creating have a similar structure and texture, which will make the implant more familiar to the body, she said. The higher surface area offered by the powder provides greater strength for the implant and could decrease healing time, she said.

The timing for this research couldn’t be better. With sports and age-related injuries, the number of replacements are on the rise. Between 800,000 and 1 million of these surgeries are performed each year in the United States.

In 2002, Bose was selected for the NSF’s early career development program, which got her five years of research funding. Now she is a participant in several grants that could further her work at WSU.

Bose shares the credit for her success with fellow WSU scientists, including her husband Amit Bandyopadhyay and biologist Howard Hosick.

"We were among the first interdisciplinary collaborations at WSU," said Hosick, who works on bone cells and brings biology into Bose’s chemistry/materials engineering equation. "She’s really at the cutting edge, and she’s a terrific scientist."

While moving fast ahead in her field and being a mentor to students, Bose has also managed a family life. She and her husband have a 21-month-old boy named Shohom. And Bose’s mother, Bithika Bose, has been visiting from India.

The whole family was able to accompany Bose on her trip to Washington, D.C., this week.

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