Dr. Marc D. Porter

• 
  www.space-travel.com/reports/Water_Quality_In_Orbit_999 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 9/15/2009    Last Visited: 9/15/2009  

  You'd like to be able to maintain iodine or silver [disinfectant] levels in real time with an onboard monitor," says Marc Porter, a University of Utah professor of chemistry and chemical engineering.
  ...
  "Our focus was to develop a small, simple, low-cost testing system that uses a handheld device, doesn't consume materials or generate waste, takes minimal astronaut time, is safe and works in microgravity," says Porter.
  ...
  The method is easy to use and much cheaper than existing tests, says Porter.
  
  From the 'Vomit Comet' to the Shuttle to the International Space Station The water-monitoring system fits in a pack the size of a small ice chest. It was launched Aug. 28 on space shuttle Discovery bound for the International Space Station.
  
  The project is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Utah Science, Technology and Research (USTAR) economic development initiative and two universities where Porter worked previously: Arizona State and Iowa State. The project team now includes NASA, USTAR and the University of Utah, Iowa State University and Wyle Laboratories. Porter is a professor hired under the USTAR program.
  
  During the past decade, the water quality monitoring method was developed and tested during about two dozen low-gravity flights on NASA's "vomit comet" research aircraft such as the KC-135 and C-9, which took off from Ellington Air Force Base in Texas. During a flight, each plane makes 40 parabola-shaped arcs through the sky, climbing steeply, then leveling and diving. Weightless conditions exist for about 30 seconds at the top of each arc.
  
  Porter rode the KC-135 twice in 2002 and 2004, and became very motion sick.
  ...
  Porter called the space station "the coolest place to do experiments."
  ...
  The project began a decade ago, before Porter joined the Utah faculty, when NASA sought proposals for disinfectant or "biocide" monitors to check the safety of drinking water on manned spacecraft.
  
  "You can't sterilize water well enough to keep things from growing in it," Porter says.
  ...
  Space station water now is sampled and returned to Earth for testing at intervals of months because "they don't have an acceptable onboard technique," Porter says.
  
  He says the space station is a proving ground for technologies for longer manned flights to the moon and Mars - even though those flights are unlikely anytime soon due to high costs and other priorities.
  
  Water for astronauts is carried into orbit and also produced on the space station as a byproduct of hydrogen and oxygen reacting in fuel cells. Disinfectants or biocides are added during flight, but actual levels in drinking water cannot be tested until samples are brought back to Earth. Porter says required biocide levels in drinking water are 0.1 to 1 part per million silver and 0.1 to 5 parts per million iodine.
  ...
  Porter says the device was developed to measure the reflectivity or gloss, and thus the quality, of finishes such as automotive paint, industrial surfaces, stainless steel and decorative metals.
  ...
  "We can do this whole analysis in about two minutes on the ground or in space," Porter says.

• 
  www.innovationutah.com/ustar/research/porter.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 9/12/2008    Last Visited: 9/12/2008  

  Dr. Marc Porter
  
  InnovationUtah
  ...
  Marc Porter, Ph.D., Nanotechnology Biosensors
  
  Professor Marc Porter has joined the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah as a USTAR Professor from Arizona State University where he was the founder and director for the Center for Combinatorial Science at the BioDesign Institute.He is an expert in the development of biosensors for early disease detection.
  
  Dr. Porter is an analytical chemist who began his academic career at Iowa State University, where he was professor of Chemistry and Chemical and Biological Engineering, as well as director of the Institute for Combinatorial Discovery and the University's Microanalytical Instrumentation Center.He is co-founder of Nanoparts, a company which manufactures gold nanoparticles, one of the most widely used classes of nanomaterials for chemical, bioanalytical, biomedical, optical and nanotechnological applications.The company has the ability to prepare gold nanoparticles of desired sizes, shapes, and monodispersity in a systematic way, and he is moving Nanoparts to Utah with him.Other companies co-founded by Porter include CombiSep, Inc., which markets an analytical separation device; and Concurrent Analytical, which has developed a new-generation immunoassay system, the Ramanprobes System, for detecting and labeling antigens.This system received the prestigious R&D 100 Award in 2003; sponsored by R&D Magazine, the award honors the top 100 products of technological significance marketed or licensed during the previous calendar year.
  
  Dr. Porter has over 200 publications and has given over 300 presentations at national and international meetings.He holds over 10 patents, with several more pending.

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  www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=31000 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 10/27/2008    Last Visited: 10/27/2008  

  "Our mission is to develop and implement a comprehensive program to advance nanoscience and technology across the university and the State of Utah," said Nano Institute director Marc Porter, Ph.D, USTAR professor in the departments of chemistry and chemical engineering. "The Institute will drive research partnerships with academia, the private sector and government agencies."
  
  The Institute, says Porter, will help Utah enhance its position in nanotechnology research and development and also facilitate commercialization of new nanoscience discoveries.
  ...
  "The Institute formalizes and strengthens the work and the partnerships already in place," Porter added.
  ...
  More on USTAR professors Ghandehari and Porter is available here: ustar.utah.gov/about/faculty. For more about the development of new technology and "knowledge economy" businesses in Utah, click on www.innovationutah.com/, the state's first online community bringing together academics, researchers, entrepreneurs, the investment community, industry representatives, and technology growth partners.
  
  ####
  
  For more information, please click here
  
  Contacts: Marc Porter director Nano Institute Phone: 801/587-1514

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  www.enanoparticles.com/aboutus.htm - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 4/12/2007    Last Visited: 4/12/2007  

  Marc D. Porter Ph.D., Advisory Board Member.Dr. Porter is a Professor at Iowa State University, Director of the Microanalytical Instrumentation Center received BS and MS degrees from Wright State University and a PhD from The Ohio State University in 1984.After a post-doctoral appointment with D. Allara at Bell Laboratories, he joined the faculty at the chemistry department of Iowa State University, and presently holds the rank of Professor and is Director of the University's Microanalytical Instrumentation Center.He has received a Special Creativity Grant Extension Award from NSF in 1993 and was the recipient of the Wright Brothers Award from the Society of Aeronautical Engineers in 1993.He is currently serving on the Analytical Chemistry Advisory Board.He is affiliated with the American Chemical Society, The Electrochemical Society, and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy.He has over 130 publications, and has given over 225 presentations at national and international meetings.He has also given over 100 invited talks at various universities and industries.He holds 8 patents, with several more pending.His research interests focus largely on the role of interfaces in analytical chemistry, including electrochemically modulated liquid chromatography, electrocatalysis, organic monolayer films and the chemical modification of surfaces, scanning probe microscopies, infrared and Raman spectroscopies, and fiber optic and acoustic wave sensors.
  
  Chuan-Jian Zhong Ph.D., Advisory Board Member.

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  www.innovationutah.com/ustar/research/nanotechnology.ht - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 9/12/2008    Last Visited: 9/12/2008  

  Dr. Marc Porter and his research team's primary research focuses on nanotechnology "biosensors" to detect materials in biological systems at ultra-low levels of concentration.These biosensors have great potential for use in immunoassays - the detection of proteins and viruses in biological materials like blood and urine.One of Porter's research areas, giant magnetoresistors (GMRs) centers on developing disease detection methods using the same magnetic principles as a common computer hard drive.Porter's group uses magnetic nanoparticles combined with antibodies to capture and bind proteins, viruses, and other disease markers.The GMRs use magnetic responses to detect the presence of the captured disease proteins at a nanoscale level, making early detection of diseases possible.
  
  Dr. Porter and his colleagues developed novel uses for spherical, cubic, and rod-shaped gold nanoparticles that are used in early detection of disease.For example, Porter and his team have developed the first system to accurately diagnose pancreatic cancer at a stage early enough that therapy might be able to help decrease the current 50 percent mortality rate.
  
  Dr. Marc Porter was recruited to the University of Utah with state funding from the USTAR initiative.Dr. Porter comes from Arizona State University where he was the director of the Center for Combinatorial Sciences at The Biodesign Institute.Dr. Porter has over 200 publications and has given over 300 presentations at national and international meetings.He holds over 10 patents, with several more pending.Dr. Porter was attracted to Utah by USTAR's three-fold approach of recruiting top researchers, building world-class facilities and aggressively seeking to commercialize new cutting-edge technologies.

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  www.wef.org/CmsWEF/Pages/News/StoryPage.aspx?story_id=1 - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 9/15/2009    Last Visited: 9/15/2009  

  "Space missions are getting longer, and with an emphasis on more human exploration of space, the ability to maintain water quality in-flight becomes much more important," said Marc Porter, a USTAR professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the U.
  
  The technology also could be used on Earth to test levels of contaminants such as arsenic, chromium, cadmium and other heavy metals.
  
  Porter started working on a water-quality monitor about 10 years ago, after attending a conference at the Johnson Space Center and deciding it would be "cool" to work on a space-based project. It took about six years to develop a testing kit that would not use the harmful chemicals used on Earth to test water purity.
  
  "We needed to use chemicals that were nonhazardous because if anything gets out of the system in the space station, it floats around and can come into contact
  
  with the astronauts," Porter said.
  
  Porter devised a water tester that weighs 1.1 pounds, runs on four AA batteries, and is about the size of a small ice cooler.
  ...
  To test the process in minimal gravity, Porter scheduled time on one of NASA's "vomit comet" aircraft, which provide about 25 seconds of weightlessness amid steep climbs and drops.
  
  Porter jokes he may have set a record for the number of barf bags he needed on his first flight, so he turned the testing over to his colleague Lorraine Siperko, a U. senior research scientist.
  
  "Having to stay out of the coolest lab on Earth was a bummer," Porter said.
  ...
  Marc Porter came to the University of Utah from Iowa State University two years ago through USTAR.
  
  "We were drawn to Utah because of the opportunity to collaborate with other scientists and to take things we design in a lab and actually get it to work in the commercial marketplace," he said.

• 
  www.rdmag.com/News/2009/09/General-Sciences-Testing-Wat - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 9/15/2009    Last Visited: 9/15/2009  

  You'd like to be able to maintain iodine or silver [disinfectant] levels in real time with an onboard monitor," says Marc Porter, a Univ. of Utah professor of chemistry and chemical engineering.
  ...
  "Our focus was to develop a small, simple, low-cost testing system that uses a handheld device, doesn't consume materials or generate waste, takes minimal astronaut time, is safe and works in microgravity," says Porter.
  ...
  The method is easy to use and much cheaper than existing tests, says Porter.
  ...
  The project is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Utah Science, Technology and Research (USTAR) economic development initiative and two universities where Porter worked previously: Arizona State and Iowa State. The project team now includes NASA, USTAR and the Univ. of Utah, Iowa State Univ., and Wyle Laboratories. Porter is a professor hired under the USTAR program.
  
  During the past decade, the water quality monitoring method was developed and tested during about two dozen low-gravity flights on NASA's "vomit comet" research aircraft such as the KC-135 and C-9, which took off from Ellington Air Force Base in Texas. During a flight, each plane makes 40 parabola-shaped arcs through the sky, climbing steeply, then leveling and diving. Weightless conditions exist for about 30 seconds at the top of each arc.
  
  Porter rode the KC-135 twice in 2002 and 2004, and became very motion sick.
  ...
  Porter called the space station "the coolest place to do experiments."
  ...
  The project began a decade ago, before Porter joined the Utah faculty, when NASA sought proposals for disinfectant or "biocide" monitors to check the safety of drinking water on manned spacecraft.
  
  "You can't sterilize water well enough to keep things from growing in it," Porter says.
  ...
  Space station water now is sampled and returned to Earth for testing at intervals of months because "they don't have an acceptable onboard technique," Porter says.
  
  He says the space station is a proving ground for technologies for longer manned flights to the moon and Mars - even though those flights are unlikely anytime soon due to high costs and other priorities.
  
  Water for astronauts is carried into orbit and also produced on the space station as a byproduct of hydrogen and oxygen reacting in fuel cells. Disinfectants or biocides are added during flight, but actual levels in drinking water cannot be tested until samples are brought back to Earth. Porter says required biocide levels in drinking water are 0.1 to 1 part per million silver and 0.1 to 5 parts per million iodine.
  ...
  Porter says the device was developed to measure the reflectivity or gloss, and thus the quality, of finishes such as automotive paint, industrial surfaces, stainless steel and decorative metals.
  ...
  "We can do this whole analysis in about two minutes on the ground or in space," Porter says.

• 
  www.innovationutah.com/ustarreport/UR_Biosensors.html - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 2/13/2009    Last Visited: 4/8/2009  

  Drawing on the University of Utah's strengths in nanotechnology, USTAR innovator Marc Porter, Ph.D. leads the Nano Institute of Utah and the NanoBiosensors Team.
  ...
  Marc Porter and colleagues are developing a remarkable chip-based diagnostic tool that may make its way into ordinary clinics.

• 
  www.ictbsb-2009.com/keynote.html - [Cached Version]
  Last Visited: 11/17/2008  

  Prof Marc D. Porter, University of Utah, USA

• 
  www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=9598 - [Cached Version]
  Last Visited: 1/31/2009  

  Dr. Marc Porter, Director of the USTAR Nanotechnology Biosensors Group at the University, along with ARUP, Inc. (Salt Lake City, UT), are partners in the effort.
  
  Posted January 27th, 2009

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