Professor Minko searches for a 'super pill'
Merridith Smith
Issue date: 11/24/03 Section: Features
MS: What are some examples or news related instances of these?
Minko: In the direction of applications, we are preparing coatings on textiles that have adaptive behaviors, and adapting materials. These textiles are sensitive to skin behavior, or can even be used for some medicine application, which can help people with illnesses of the skin. They are sensitive to changes in the environment. For instance, our skin, if it is healthy or ill, humidity, or interaction with liquid, textiles can adopt itself to the effects. It can dry itself depending on temperature, or humidity. We can use a signal to change the properties of the material.
For another example, we prepare capsules for drugs. Capsules for drugs are a responsive behavior, and uses responsive or switching materials. It can be used as a container for delivery of particular drugs, to a particular point in the organism. When it gets to the particular target we can use an external signal to open the capsule with the medicine to be released.
Sometimes magnets are used to do this. This is a new type of medicine because if you just put your medicine in your organism it just releases and extremely high concentrations of medicine are released to the whole organism, which are not very healthy to put "super pill" chemistry in you. But if you have "smart capsules", you can release it at a particular moment. For instance, if you take drugs for stomach treatment, it opens only when you have a really high acidity, so if you don't have high acidity then possibly you don't need to have this drug acting in your system. This creates a whole new generation of materials.
MS: What did your parents do for a living?
Minko: My Father was a Chemical Engineer. He worked as a Head of Production for a chemical company producing paints.
MS: Can you see any teaching differences between the schools in the United States and yours?
Minko: Not too much. Additionally to lecture hours in Ukraine there are specially scheduled seminar hours for discussions, midterm exams, home works, and projects, so that lectures are separated from all other activity by the schedule. However, this is more or less a question of the organization. Here each professor can do the same if he or she thinks that it better fits the course. In Ukraine undergraduate students have fewer possibilities to make a choice of classes and professors. The courses are "prescribed" by the dean. In Ukraine the fraction of oral exams is larger.
Minko: In the direction of applications, we are preparing coatings on textiles that have adaptive behaviors, and adapting materials. These textiles are sensitive to skin behavior, or can even be used for some medicine application, which can help people with illnesses of the skin. They are sensitive to changes in the environment. For instance, our skin, if it is healthy or ill, humidity, or interaction with liquid, textiles can adopt itself to the effects. It can dry itself depending on temperature, or humidity. We can use a signal to change the properties of the material.
For another example, we prepare capsules for drugs. Capsules for drugs are a responsive behavior, and uses responsive or switching materials. It can be used as a container for delivery of particular drugs, to a particular point in the organism. When it gets to the particular target we can use an external signal to open the capsule with the medicine to be released.
Sometimes magnets are used to do this. This is a new type of medicine because if you just put your medicine in your organism it just releases and extremely high concentrations of medicine are released to the whole organism, which are not very healthy to put "super pill" chemistry in you. But if you have "smart capsules", you can release it at a particular moment. For instance, if you take drugs for stomach treatment, it opens only when you have a really high acidity, so if you don't have high acidity then possibly you don't need to have this drug acting in your system. This creates a whole new generation of materials.
MS: What did your parents do for a living?
Minko: My Father was a Chemical Engineer. He worked as a Head of Production for a chemical company producing paints.
MS: Can you see any teaching differences between the schools in the United States and yours?
Minko: Not too much. Additionally to lecture hours in Ukraine there are specially scheduled seminar hours for discussions, midterm exams, home works, and projects, so that lectures are separated from all other activity by the schedule. However, this is more or less a question of the organization. Here each professor can do the same if he or she thinks that it better fits the course. In Ukraine undergraduate students have fewer possibilities to make a choice of classes and professors. The courses are "prescribed" by the dean. In Ukraine the fraction of oral exams is larger.