Two ISU professors were awarded the “Oscars of applied science,” in Chicago Oct. 16.

Marc Porter, professor of chemistry, and Bob Lipert, associate scientist at the Microanalytical Instrumentation Center, received the 2003 Research and Development Awards, which honor the top 100 products of technological advancement that have been marketed or licensed in the past year.

The R&D Awards, sponsored by R&D Magazine, are the only awards for applied science and scientists.

Porter and Lipert, along with four graduate students, teamed up with Concurrent Analytical, Inc. of Kailua, Hawaii to develop the RamanprobesTM system.

The RamanprobesTM system detects and labels antigens — proteins that serve as the body’s natural defense system against infectious agents.

Jeremy Driskell, Betsy Yakes, Jill Uhlenkamp and Hye-Young Park, graduate students in chemistry, along with Porter and Lipert, have been developing the RamanprobesTM system for about four years.

“The idea is the earlier you can detect forms of a disease, the greater the probability of a positive outcome,” Porter said.

It currently takes about two days for a diagnosis from a blood test, but with the RamanprobesTM system, the diagnosis time will be reduced to less than one minute.

“It would be great if you could go in and give a blood sample and then come back the next day and get a result,” Porter said.

The system will eventually be used in the medical field in areas such as toxicology and infectious disease applications.

“I agree with the R&D 100 Awards committee,” Yakes said. “This project truly is technologically significant and has the possibility to impact society through quick detection and identification of compounds in medical and military applications.”

Detecting cancer in its earlier stages — particularly prostate cancer — was the main focus for the primary testing of the RamanprobesTM system.

The graduate students have been working on the system as part of their graduate dissertation training. Each person specializes in a different area, and then they collaborate.

The RamanprobesTM system has received a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to continue the work, and has recently received positive feedback from a proposal submitted to the National Institutes of Health, Porter said.

While no specific date has been set, it is hoped that one day the RamanprobesTM system will be used everywhere.

“We are involved now in a few collaborations with a few potential users,” Porter said. “We do have some folks excited about it.”