Justinhsb

What is SOFIA's mission and why?

From my own lab, I think the biggest impact will be in the development of nanoparticles that can patrol in the bloodstream on the look out for, and able to treat, medical conditions that do not yet present symptoms. Cancer is, of course, very significant in this regard, but we are focused on heart disease, which is actually a numerically larger cause of death than cancer and much less studied in nano medicine. We have particles that can detect early stage heart disease and are working on better diagnostic and therapeutic methods.

Important moral and ethical questions such as cloning, gene-editing and many others are indeed connected with work at the IME and other major research institutions. This is another reason why IME avoids narrow disciplinary definition. We must stay in touch with our public policy and social science colleagues in a manner different from the narrow disciplinary sciences and engineering.

Unlikely to make it faster any time soon, but safer from a secure communications viewpoint, quite possibly. Quantum information tools enable signals to be transmitted in ways that make eavesdropping much more difficult.

Not now or in the foreseeable future