They are listed below by name, age, category of expertise and affiliation. Those who are currently at MIT are listed first with a short profile edited from Technology Review. To see the entire list and profiles of each innovator, go to the Technology Review web site. Bonnie Berger is leading a group of computational biologists to develop software that uses mathematical algorithms to predict protein folding based on the sequence of amino acids. Potential applications range from a flexible light guide for delivering laser light to a specific internal organ, to new devices for optical communications.
Carbohydrates play a key role in everything from healing wounds to heart disease.
Yet their chemistry remains somewhat mysterious. Seeberger has set out to change all that. He has already dreamed up new ways to string carbohydrates together from their simple sugar building blocks, and also spearheaded the assembly of the most complex carbohydrate ever made by man. Jackie Ying is more interested in explaining uses of her nanoscale materials than in discussing arcane details of their chemistry.