2011 Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research

Dr. Jason H. Hafner Rice University

“For his innovative work on carbon nanotubes,
nanophotonics, and membrane biophysics."

The Texas native grew up south of Dallas and earned an undergraduate degree in physics at Trinity University.  After graduate school at Rice, he completed postdoctoral work at Harvard University before returning to Rice as a faculty member.

Jason H. Hafner applies tools from chemistry and physics to study biological systems.  Among his breakthroughs:  discovering a new type of nanostructure, gold nanostars, which are proving useful for sensing, imaging and medicine, and developing a means to measure, for the first time, a large electrical field inside cell membranes.  For this innovative approach to basic research, the associate professor at Rice University is being honored as this year's "rising star" with The Welch Foundation's Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research.

Half physicist and half chemist, the Rice professor studies how to modify the surface chemistry of metal nanoparticles to affect how they grow and how they interact with living cells.  This is important since the resulting size and shape of the nanoparticles determine their optical properties.  In this process, he created gold nanostars, a complex new structure whose many elongated points absorb and scatter light at varying wavelengths.  He has mapped the optical properties of the stars and how they may be used for imaging (by scattering light) and sensing (by tracking changes in optical properties caused by the environment).  The gold nanostars also are expected to have important therapeutic applications.  For example, Dr. Hafner collaborates with Rice colleague Dmitri Lapotko who uses lasers to create nanobubbles from the nanostars that can pinpoint and kill individual cancer cells.

On the analytical front, he is using the tip of an atomic force microscope to detect the large electrical field inside lipid membranes, where most of the cell's work is done.  Created by molecular dipoles, this membrane property is thought to be important, but its biological role is largely unexplored since it is difficult to measure.  Dr. Hafner has mapped the spatial variation of the dipole moment of membranes, and is now trying to see how that membrane parameter may affect the interactions of small biomolecules with the membrane.  In a related effort, he also hopes to develop a more traditional optical method to measure the dipole moment so that it may be more broadly studied.

Dr. Hafner will be recognized on January 27 at a luncheon hosted by The Welch Foundation and will be presented with the crystal rising star sculpture and $100,000.