Michael Roukes, left; Pamela Bjorkman, right
PASADENA, Calif.—Two scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have been recognized by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for their innovative and high-impact biomedical research programs. Michael Roukes, professor of physics, applied physics, and bioengineering, and co-director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute, and Pamela Bjorkman, Caltech's Max Delbrück Professor of Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, now join the 81 Pioneers—including Caltech researchers Rob Phillips and Bruce Hay—who have been selected since the program's inception in 2004. "NIH is pleased to be supporting scientists from across the country who are taking considered risks in a wide range of areas in order to accelerate research," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins in announcing the awards. "We look forward to the result of their work." According to its website, the program provides each investigator chosen with up to $500,000 in direct costs each year for five years to pursue what the NIH refers to as "high-risk research," and was created to "support individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose pioneering—and possibly transforming—approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research." For Roukes, that means using "nanoscale tools to push biomedical frontiers." Specifically, he plans to leverage advances in nanosystems technology, "an approach that coordinates vast numbers of individual nanodevices into a coherent whole," he explains.
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