Innovators Under 352004
Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research we find most exciting; today that collection is the TR35, a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35. Their work--spanning medicine, computing, communications, electronics, nanotechnology, and more--is changing our world.
2004 Innovator of the Year: Scott Heiferman
2004 Humanitarian of the Year: Vikram Sheel Kumar
Computing
Jonathan Abrams
Created the Nets top social-networking site, where eight million people communicate with friends and friends of friends.
Guido Appenzeller
Started a Palo Alto, CA, firm to commercialize an encryption technology that uses a simple ID, such as an e-mail address, to ensure secure communications.
Alyssa Apsel
Adapts optical-communications technology to build receivers, transmitters, and interconnects that speed chip-to-chip communications within computers.
Anuj Batra
Leads one of the industrys top teams advancing ultrawideband wireless technology, which provides the high transmission speeds needed for streaming-media applications while consuming little power.
Serge Belongie
Created video software to analyze lab mice for adverse reactions to trial drugs.
Vance Bjorn
Partnered with fellow TR100 honoree Serge Belongie (see above) to found a Redwood City, CA, biometrics company that specializes in fingerprint recog-nition for computer access.
David Brussin
Built a router that examines the content and source of messages passing through it.
J. J. Cadiz
Invented a better approach to alleviating information overload.
Tianqiao Chen
Specializes in multiplayer fantasy and role-playing games.
Aref Chowdhury
Invented techniques at Bell Labs that enable higher-speed transmission of data over very long distances (up to 6,400 kilometers) within fiber-optic networks.
Raffaele Colombelli
Develops new types of quantum cascade microlasers with a variety of sensing and imaging applications.
Adrian Colyer
Leads the effort to improve software quality and cut development costs.
Robert Drost
Pioneered a wireless technology to eliminate the wired connections between closely spaced chips in computer systems.
Robert Frederick
Helping to lead Amazons transformation, with its own virtual vending machines.
Dan Gruhl
Serves as chief architect for IBMs WebFountain system.
Ali Hajimiri
Developed an entire radar system, squeezed into a single chip.
Scott Heiferman
Built a database and developed software that would help people organize themselves.
Michael Helmbrecht
Fabricates microscopic, deformable mirrors on computer chips that perform image correction for medical imaging, surveillance, and other applications.
Aaron Hertzmann
Combines machine learning and graphics to capture the motion of actors, dancers, and athletes -- and to generate realistic animations for films and video games.
Kurt Huang
Launched a startup developing micropayments technology that allows artists, small businesses, and others to charge fees of as little as one cent for access to online content.
Ari Juels
Improved the security and privacy of radio frequency identification tags, as well as cryptographic tools for authentication systems.
Richard Kent
Produces biomechanical data vital to the design of air bags and auto safety systems.
Andre Kulzer
Created a thermodynamic simulation that showed the feasibility of gasoline direct injection, which lowers auto fuel consumption and emissions and eliminates the electric starter.
Golan Levin
Explores the artistic implications of information technology.
Massimo Marchiori
Develops more efficient ways of identifying, finding, and retrieving information on the Web.
Wojciech Matusik
Creates 3-D television and related 3-D photo and video systems that weave together images from multiple cameras.
James OBrien
Invented algorithms for simulating natural phenomena such as splashing water and explosions, for use in movies, video games, and advanced training simulations.
Nuria Oliver
Constructs more-intuitive human-computer interfaces.
Maria Petrucci-Samija
Created materials that might soon make such integrated photonic circuits possible.
Ramesh Raskar
Built large computer display systems that seamlessly combine images from multiple projectors.
Jennifer Rexford
Created tools for monitoring and automatically managing Internet traffic on large networks.
Sokwoo Rhee
Designed extremely-low-power wireless-sensor networks.
Shad Roundy
Built tiny generators for wireless sensor networks that convert low-level background vibrations into electricity, eliminating the need for batteries.
Jesse Schell
Invents new forms of digital visualization.
Kees Schep
Helped develop blue-laser optical-disc storage systems with much greater capacity than todays DVDs. The discs are now being introduced commercially.
Biomedicine
Vadim Backman
Found a way to spot colon cancer earlier than was previously possible.
Yaakov Benenson
He wants to replace physicians with molecular machines that diagnose and treat diseases with phenomenal precision.
Rebekah Drezek
Develops photonic technologies that use targeted nanomaterials to detect, monitor, and treat breast and gynecologic cancers painlessly, and at a fraction of the cost of conventional approaches.
Ryan Egeland
Slashed the cost of producing a DNA chip from hundreds of dollars to a few dollars by combining microfluidics, computer control, and novel electrochemistry.
Michael Elowitz
Combines existing genes to build artificial biological pathways, or "circuits," that operate inside cells.
Tim Gardner
Constructs computer models of cellular pathways in order to optimize bacteria for energy production and environmental remediation.
Colin Hill
Aims to more than double human trials success rate by virtually prescreening drugs in computer models of human cells.
Shana Kelley
Builds nanoscale electrochemical and electrical sensors to detect medically relevant gene sequences and proteins.
Gloria Kolb
Devised a way to remove kidney stones more cost effectively and less invasively by taking advantage of the ureters tendency to dilate around foreign objects.
Jörg Lahann
Designed an electrically switchable surface coating that can alternate between attracting and repelling water.
Eric C. Leuthardt
Showed that a patient could achieve real-time control of a computer via electrodes placed on the brains surface.
David Liu
Applies evolutionary principles to synthetic molecules by linking starting materials to DNA strands.
Frank Lyko
Aims to reprogram cancer cells to be more like normal cells by developing compounds that block the aberrant modification of DNA in cancer cells.
Lauren Meyers
Helped public-health officials control epidemics of walking pneumonia and SARS with sophisticated mathematical models that predict how a disease will spread through networks of human interactions.
Ananth Natarajan
Bridging the gap between research and patient care.
Vasilis Ntziachristos
Facilitated noninvasive optical imaging of proteins and other molecules in the body, which could lead to ultraprecise diagnosis of cancer and other diseases.
Shayn Peirce
Models how individual cells in tissues migrate, multiply, and develop during processes such as blood vessel growth. The models should aid tissue engineering and drug development.
Cristoph Schaffrath
Discovered an enzyme that could enable environmentally benign production of fluorine-containing compounds such as Teflon and Prozac, which are now made via noxious chemical processes.
Monisha Scott
Determined how small, natural proteins boost the immune response.
Vikram Sheel Kumar
Developed interactive software that motivates patients to manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and AIDS.
Christina Smolke
Fine-tunes the activity of individual genes via an adaptable technology.
Kahp-Yang Suh
Came up with the first method that allows researchers to pattern proteins and cells directly onto glass or plastic surfaces or within microfluidic channels without complicated preparation.
Olga Troyanskaya
Devised sophisticated and accurate computer algorithms for analyzing data generated using DNA microarrays.
Smruti Vidwans
Development of drugs to assist in the battle against TB.
Lei Wang
Expanded the genetic code in order to allow living cells to incorporate new, unnatural building blocks into the proteins that they make.
Sandra Waugh Ruggles
Uses clever testing schemes to determine which protein- slicing enzymes make the cut as potential drugs.
Xiaowei Zhuang
She has filmed a single influenza virus infecting a cell.
Materials
Marcel Bruchez
Cofounded Quantum Dot to market the new imaging tool to biologists and drug developers.
Vladimir Bulovic
Uses organic and nanostructured semiconductors in devices such as light-emitting diodes, lasers, photodetectors, and chemical sensors.
Mayank Bulsara
Developer of strained silicon.
Dustin Carr
Creates nanoscale silicon devices that can detect subatomic-scale movements.
Selena Chan
Designs nanotechnological tools to detect viruses, bacteria, and, for the first time, single molecules of DNA in medical samples.
Martin Colpepper
Builds the machines needed to make high-quality, low-cost nanofabrication a reality.
Yi Cui
Demonstrated the possibility of building new structures using the basic ingredients of nanotech.
LÆtitia Delmau
Helped solve fundamental problems in nuclear-waste treatment.
Martha Gardner
Created statistical models and design software to make materials development more efficient.
Verena Graf
Develops fuel cells that are practical for powering cars.
Yu Han
Synthesized nanoscale particles with tiny, precisely defined pores.
Stefan Hecht
Devised a new class of polymer nanotubes and other molecular building blocks. These novel materials have potential applications in the fabrication of nanosized electronic devices.
Darrell Irvine
Crafts nanoparticles that would release chemicals inside the body to "program" immune cells to combat viral infections like HIV, to tolerate transplants, or even to destroy malignant tumors.
Rustem Ismagilov
Develops microfluidics technologies that use tiny droplets to characterize the function and structure of proteins and to model complex biochemical processes.
Albena Ivanisevic
Uses microscopic tips to deposit precise patterns of peptides directly onto tissues in the body.
Ravi Kane
Created a highly potent anthrax treatment in which each drug molecule blocks multiple toxin molecules rather than just one.
Kinneret Keren
Exploits biology-based self-assembly to build molecular electronics. She created a self-assembled molecular-electronic device -- a carbon nanotube transistor -- using a DNA template.
Jamie Link
Etched optical bar codes into micrometer-size pieces of silicon. She hopes to use the technology to detect pollutants in water or cancerous cells within the body.
Yueh-Lin (Lynn) Loo
Invented nano transfer printing.
Tyler McQuade
Creates catalysts to reduce the number of steps needed to synthesize drugs, diminishing environmentally hazardous by-products.
Teri Odom
Patterned silicon to create minuscule "beakers" that hold only zeptoliters.
Leroy Ohlsen
Replaced fuel cells plastic membranes with porous silicon.
Erik Scher
Works on inorganic semiconductor nanomaterials.
Molly Stevens
Shown that she can control the behavior of gold nanoparticles.
Michael Strano
Arrived at a new understanding of carbon nanotube surface chemistry.
William Taylor
Spearheads efforts to commercialize the "plasmatron," a pollution control device that converts diesel fuel to hydrogen, cutting nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 90 percent.
Tsuyoshi Yamamoto
Demonstrated the first-ever two-qubit logic gate in a solid-state device, an advance crucial to building an ultrafast quantum computer.
Shu Yang
Designs "smart" photonic devices for lightning-fast computers and communications networks.
Yuankai Zheng
Simplified the production of magnetic RAM.