The Hieftje Group—With Gary Hieftje (far left) are members of the Hieftje Research Group at the Laboratory for Spectrochemistry. They are: (front row from left) Susan Hieftje and Lee Ann Mobley; (second row from left) Bill Wetzel, Denise McClenathan, Andrew Szumlas, Gerardo Gamez and George Chan; and (third row from left) Mike Webb, Duane Rogers, Francisco Andrade, Greg Schilling and Steve Ray. Research ranges from plasma physics to chemical sensors and includes both optical and mass spectrometry.  The Hieftje Group t-shirt

“Unfortunately,” said Gary Hieftje, Robert and Marjorie Mann Chair and Distinguished Professor of chemistry at IU Bloomington, “this traditional approach generally yields only incremental gains in knowledge.” Today, he said, many of the most important scientific advances arise from what he calls “true innovation,” meaning “making connections between areas that had no apparent relationship before.”

True innovations are often fostered by basic science, such as the emergence of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) from the technical field of nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry. But sometimes, an application is so important that its underpinnings demand fundamental investigation. The current bioscience revolution is one example.

“Clearly, basic science can lead to the solution of significant applied problems, and important present problems can lead to better science,” Hieftje said. “These two approaches—the applied leading the basic and the basic driving the applied—can be considered the two sides of scientific investigation.”

But two sides are not sufficient. The translation of basic scientific findings into practical applications and the design of basic experiments to characterize important applications both require a catalyst, said Hieftje, and that catalyst is often instrumentation.

“Just as the development of MRI required new devices and tools, so did the decoding of the human genome,” he pointed out. Hieftje identifies three sides of scientific investigation: basic science, applied science and instrumentation.

An expert in developing instruments and techniques for analytical chemistry, "[Two] Three Sides of Scientific Investigation.”

Drawing on work from his laboratory group, Hieftje will review the lab’s studies to discover and eliminate errors that occur when a rare-gas plasma discharge is used to determine concentrations of trace elements in systems such as bodily fluids and tissues, forensic specimens and geological samples.

“The instrumentation needed for this work is unique, complicated and essential,” he said.

In a second area, driven by a critical application, Hieftje’s lab is developing tools to measure metal-containing proteins in biological samples. The metals found in numerous proteins serve many possible roles, including providing a site for critical biological functions such as oxidation.

In yet another area, instrumentation itself is the focus of the lab’s activity. Hieftje and his group are developing a new kind of light source, capable of generating pulses of light less than a nanosecond in length and at a rate exceeding 100 million pulses per second, which needs no external power and can be constructed in sizes down to the micrometer scale. “The instrument is so unusual and of such potentially widespread importance that it justifies the effort on its own,” Hieftje said.

Hieftje will deliver his Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture on Monday, April 4, at 3 p.m. in Whittenberger Auditorium, Indiana Memorial Union, IU Bloomington.

The annual lecture is co-sponsored by the Office of the Bloomington Chancellor and the Office of the Vice President for Research. Inaugurated in 1980, the lecture series honors the achievements of IUB faculty. Past distinguished lecturers include Ciprian Foias, Richard Shiffrin, Elinor Ostrom, Bruce Cole, Esther Thelen and Alex Dzierba.

http://www.indiana.edu/~gmhlab/