Japanese Nanotechnology Scientist Awarded Heinrich Emanuel Merck Award - News Item

This year's Heinrich Emanuel Merck Award for Analytical Chemistry goes to Professor Yoshinobu Baba. The Heinrich Emanuel Merck Award for the promotion of analytical chemistry research is sponsored by Merck KGaA, based in Darmstadt, Germany and named after the company founder. It is conferred upon who have contributed to developing groundbreaking new analytical chemistry methods.

Professor Baba received the award for the paper "Nanospheres for DNA separation chips" published in Nature Biotechnology, 2004, 22 (3). The paper describes a novel nanobiotechnology-based method of analysis that enables the high-speed, high-resolution separation of a broad range of DNA fragments. In experimental use, the nanosphere solution separated DNA fragments in up to 15 000 base pairs at high speed and with high resolution using microchip electrophoresis. In addition, the extremely low-viscosity nanosphere solution is easy to handle and can be used for on-the-spot DNA analysis with no need for a special laboratory.

 Professor Baba's report demonstrates that nanomaterial from molecular nanotechnology has applications for chip-based DNA separation. Baba's insights open up the prospect of a new area of scientific research combining the strengths of nanotechnology and biotechnology.

Posted 22^nd April 2004