2004 Sixth Annual Beckman Scholars Symposium

"NanoSystems Biology"

James Heath
Elizabeth W. Gilloon Professor and Professor of Chemistry
California Institute of Technology

Over the past few years high throughput measurement tools have been developed for sequencing genes, measuring gene expression profiles, and measuring and sequencing proteins. These tools, when coupled together with powerful computers and software, are enabling researchers to build informative and testable models for how biological systems work, and how their function is altered by the presence of disease. However, this fundamental approach to biology, called systems biology, has not yet had an impact on clinical medicine. Using cancer as an example, I will describe a suite of new, ultraminiaturized (nano)technologies that have the potential for translating a systems biology approach into clinical diagnostics and therapeutics.

James Heath is the Elizabeth W. Gilloon Professor and Professor of Chemistry at Caltech. He received his Ph.D. in 1988 from Rice University and was a Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley from 1988-91. From 1991-94 he was a research staff member at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Facility in New York. He joined the UCLA chemistry department faculty in 1994 as an Assistant Professor, was promoted to tenure in 1996, and to Professor in 1997. In 2000 he helped form the California NanoSystems Institute, a joint venture between UCLA and UCSB. In 2003 he joined the faculty at Caltech. He has worked in various areas of nanoscale science and technology, including the construction of a molecular electronic based computing machine, and, more recently, on the application of nanotech electronics towards fundamental problems on cancers and infectious diseases.