October 21, 2004

Student inventors win

Shad Thaxton, a Northwestern doctoral student, and Jwa-Min Nam, a recent graduate who is now a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, are the 2004 graduate student winners of the Collegiate Inventors Competition, a program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. 

Thaxton, Nam and their advisor Chad Mirkin, George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, have invented a new technology that allows them to find miniscule amounts of microscopic biological materials, useful in medical testing. Because their invention, which they call “bio barcode amplified detection systems,” is so much more sensitive and precise than previous types of tests, it could be used to detect chemical signs of Alzheimer’s disease or types of cancer far earlier than conventional tests.

Thaxton and Nam receive a $25,000 prize, and Mirkin receives $5,000. This is the second year in a row that students of Mirkin’s have won a prize in the competition.