UpDate - Vol. 14, No. 32, Page 1
May 18, 1995
W.M. Keck Foundation gives $250,000 for new laboratory

     The University has received a $250,000 grant from the W.M. Keck
Foundation to establish a new chemical interface laboratory. To be
known as the W.M. Keck Foundation Laboratory, the facility will be
located in one of the chemistry buildings on the Newark campus, and
research conducted there in the field of biomaterials could lead to
the development of important technologies vital to human health.
     Part of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the lab
will provide new and unique chemical instrumentation to investigate
surfaces by researchers in the colleges of Arts and Science,
Engineering and Marine Studies. The lab will open this summer.
     "Advances in research on surfaces will enable the development of
safer medical implants, materials for more cost-effective purification
of therapeutic drugs and artificial membranes for making complex
molecules without harm to the environment," according to Mary Wirth,
the professor of chemistry and biochemistry who will direct the lab.
     "A key to all of these advances is the ability to detect
structures smaller than what can be seen with an optical microscope.
Submicroscopic features on the surfaces are typically responsible for
the performance of materials. The Keck Laboratory will house a variety
of instruments that probe surface chemistry on the submicroscopic
scale," she said.
     The inaugural instrument for the Keck Laboratory is a near-field
scanning optical microscope, a recent invention that allows optical
microscopy to be performed with resolution l0 times smaller than a
wavelength of light or 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human
hair.
     The remarkably high resolution is achieved by using an optical
fiber whose tip has been drawn to a diameter smaller than the
wavelength of light. As the light beam exits the narrow tip of the
optical fiber, it rapidly spreads to a size much larger than the
wavelength of light. By bringing the fiber very close to the surface,
the light beam reaches the surface before spreading. The short region
where the beam remains smaller than the wavelength of light is called
the near-field; hence, the name of the microscope.
     A detector on the other side of the chemical surface is used to
measure fluorescence emission resulting from absorption of the light
by molecules on the surface. The florescence emission contains the
chemical information, encoded in wavelength and time. A submicroscopic
image of the surface chemistry is obtained by physically scanning the
position of fiber tip over the surface.
     One of the most exciting applications of near-field microscopy
will be the study of single molecules, which is an emerging new
subdiscipline in analytical chemistry, Wirth said.
     Single-molecule characterization will greatly benefit research on
surfaces because the behavior of biological molecules interacting with
these surfaces varies from one molecule to the next. Current optical
measurements sense the average of many molecules, washing away the
important details about individual interactions. These details often
would provide the insights needed to create better surfaces.
     "Many practical benefits of the research are anticipated," Wirth
said. "New surfaces coating medical implants will reduce the present
risks of blood clots caused by blood components adhering to the
surface. New surfaces designed for moderate adhesion by drugs will
reduce the costs of prescription medicines by enabling inexpensive
purification. New surfaces designed to control chemical reactions at
electrodes will reduce waste products in the manufacturing of a wide
variety of economically important materials."
     Other UD scientists who will be using the new laboratory include
Dennis H. Evans and Mahendra K. Jain, chemistry and biochemistry;
Stuart L. Cooper, Abraham M. Lenhoff and Eric W. Kaler, chemical
engineering; and J. Herbert Waite, marine studies.
     The W.M. Keck Foundation, one of the nation's largest foundations
in terms of annual grants, was established in 1954 by the late William
M. Keck, founder of the Superior Oil Co., who also created in his will
the W.M. Keck Trust for the benefit of the foundation.
     The foundation's primary focus is on grants to universities and
colleges throughout the United States, with particular emphasis in the
fields of science, engineering and medical research.
                                                          -Beth Thomas