El-Sayed awarded Medal of Science

Mostafa El-Sayed, Regents’ Professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been awarded the 2007 National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor in the field.

	Mostafa El-Sayed

“My goodness. I am very fortunate and lucky to be doing science in America. There are so many excellent people doing science all over this country,” said El-Sayed, who holds the Julius Brown Chair and is also the director of the Laser Dynamics Laboratory. “I want to thank my past and present graduate students and postdotoral fellows, my colleagues, the administration and staff at Georgia Tech and UCLA who all helped me to do my science and get this honor. There was no limit to the support I received.

El-Sayed’s citation reads: “For his seminal and creative contributions to our understanding of the electronic and optical properties of nano-materials and to their applications in nano-catalysis and nano-medicine, for his humanitarian efforts of exchange among countries and for his role in developing the scientific leadership of tomorrow.” He will receive the medal, established by Congress in 1959, at a White House ceremony on Sept. 29.

Currently, El-Sayed is working with his son, Ivan, of the University of California, San Francisco, to develop cylindrical gold nanorods that can bind to cancer cells. Once the cells are bound to the gold, they scatter light, which makes them easy to detect. Using a laser, they can selectively destroy the cancer cells without harming the healthy cells. The nanorods are tuned to a frequency that allows them to use lasers that can delve under the skin to kill cancer cells without harming the skin.

In addition to his research, El-Sayed still teaches at least one semester of freshman chemistry. This fall, he is scheduled to teach Chemistry 1310, a general chemistry lecture course.

“I will retire when I lose this interest [in teaching], because that’s why I’m here,” El-Sayed said in an October 2000 article in The Whistle.

The National Medal of Science is awarded by the National Science Foundation.