The long awaited paper has been published online on the website of Nature Materials if you want to go take a peek. Things got a little crazy around here yesterday. All because a while ago, the Boss had me write up something for the PR department but had me change the name of my nanoparticles to Nano-Stars of David, well since they actually look like Stars of David in the microscope.
Well, the PR department just LOVED that and they farmed it out to all the media yesterday since the media embargo was getting lifted at midnight. Turns out the Israeli media loves the Nano-Stars of David too. The boss spent the day on the phone with reporters and write ups are going in both Hebrew and English Dailies and on one of the radio stations. The lady from the Jerusalem Post did a pretty good job and her article can be seen here. I told her on the phone yesterday that her artice was so good, I was going to buy an extra copy of the paper for my mom to put on her fridge.
All I have to say is THANK GOODNESS I did not have to give an interview in Hebrew.
Ok. So lets actually talk about the science now - because I finally can.
I was trying to make hybrid nanoparticles- ones with two different parts- out of a new combination of materials.
You make one type of particles and then try to grow a second part on.
When people have done this in the past, they usually see the second material growing on the other like a egg and yolk or a blob sticking off one end like a big zit. What I found was that in this case, the second material grew this really cool little cage around the original particle. No one had seen that before.
It took a long time to a) figure out what the heck I was seeing in my electron microscope images b) convince the boss that they were indeed cages, and c) gather enough evidence to convince paper reviewers. The shape was pretty much clear from analysis of the images I took, but to clinch it, we ended up collaborating with these great and super talented electron microscope gurus in Germany to make a 3D model from a bunch of images. Yup, I was right about the shape. And now we have a super cool 3D model to prove it.
You may remember that I also needed to show function. It turns out these little particles because of their little metal cage are fantastic electrochemical sensors for peroxide. Why is that important, you ask? Well because peroxide sensing is the first key step to developing a new glucose sensor that won't need unstable best-before-dated enzymes attached to it. Hello Diabetics! This is cool for you!
So a little perspective for you non science types:
Nature Materials a completely freaking awesome journal to get published in? Yes, Yes it is
Is it the best out there? No, Nature and Science are better. But Nature Materials it the top for the physical sciences.
Why is your name first on the paper? Cause I did most of the work.
Why is the boss' name last? Cause he's the boss.
It this a super-dee-duper interesting discovery? Why yes, I think so.
Will this change our lives in anyway with in the next five years? Nope.
Will this get me a job? If the gods continue to shine on me. Clearly at least Yahweh is on my side.
4 comments:
Fantastic work, Janet! I think your fame might last a little more than 15 seconds for this one.
SCHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET! Nice stuff! Congrats on all the coverage! It will definitely help you in you job search! If you haven't already done so, I suggest creating a section in your CV with the heading "Media Coverage of Research" or something like that and list every media outlet that covered this (or least as many of them as you can find) and put the full references down. Universities love it when their researchers are covered in the media because it's great PR. If your post-doc work gets coverage, well then there's a good chance your independent work will as well, or so the thinking goes.
Awhoo! Nice work Janet! Those tomography movies are something else.
You're the star!
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