Eureka! MSU researchers see big possibilities in the ultra-small – MSU will be asking the Board of Regents next week to approve creation of a Center for Bio-Inspired NanoMaterials.

Stepping into a bath inspired the Greek physicist Archimedes to discover the principle of specific gravity.

So why couldn’t two Montana State University scientists have a "Eureka!" moment while sipping red wine in a hot tub?

By GAIL SCHONTZLER, Chronicle Staff Writer

Two friends were talking shop one winter evening a decade ago. Chemist Trevor Douglas was describing a protein that’s built like a cage that holds iron inside, like a coffee cup holds coffee. Virologist Mark Young said he knew of a plant virus that’s basically similar, a sphere with a hollow center.

"We said, ‘What if we could force it to really act like a coffee cup, and make it do whatever we want?’" Douglas said.

It was such a novel idea, he said, "People laughed, but they followed that up very quickly with funding."

Five years later, their paper on "virus protein cages" was published in the scientific journal Nature. Today they and other scientists at MSU — as well as researchers at Scripps Research Institute, the University of California, Duke University and elsewhere — are testing ideas for using viruses as ultra-small containers.

They’re so small, they’re measured in nanometers. A nanometer is about 10 atoms in size; a strand of hair is about 1,000 nanometers across.

If their ideas pan out, people may someday use the harmless, hollow viruses to deliver anti-cancer medicines to tumor cells, or deliver catalysts to speed up toxic waste cleanup, or make super-clear MRI images to show doctors what’s going on inside patients.

They may even be able to use viruses to build computer chips, which could hold hundreds times more information than today’s chips.

"It’s pretty far out there," Douglas admitted. "But it is not science fiction. I think it’s one of the most exciting programs in the country, if not the world."

It’s promising enough that MSU scientists working in the field have landed research grants totaling about $8 million. Grants have come from the Japanese manufacturer Panasonic, computer hard-drive maker Seagate Technology, as well as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Navy, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency.

Douglas and Young said their job is to work on the basic science, but if these ideas have commercial possibilities, MSU could make money through patents.

MSU will be asking the Board of Regents next week to approve creation of a Center for Bio-Inspired NanoMaterials. A center would give MSU’s work a higher profile and bring together scientists whose work is spread out around campus, they said. Other participants would be co-director Yves Idzerda from physics and David Singel and Mary Cloninger from chemistry.

Funding would come from research grants, not state dollars.

MSU says the center has the potential to create environmentally clean industries, high-paying jobs, and royalties for MSU, while giving graduate and undergraduate students the chance to learn from world-class scientists.

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