Frank V. Bright, University at Buffalo

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Abstract

The Analyst profiles Frank V. Bright, University at Buffalo Distinguished Professor and holder of the endowed A. Conger Goodyear Chair.

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Biography

Frank V. Bright grew up near San Diego, California and earned a BS degree in chemistry from the University of Redlands in 1982. As an undergraduate, Frank worked with Professor Julian L. Roberts investigating the reactivity of DDT with superoxide. In 1985, Frank completed his PhD at Oklahoma State University under the direction of Professor Linda B. McGown. His PhD thesis focused on the development of phase-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy for multi-component analysis. Frank studied with Professor Gary M. Hieftje at Indiana University (1985–1987) as a postdoctoral fellow. The work from Indiana focused largely on developing time-resolved fluorescence tools and fiber-optic-based sensors for chemical analysis. Frank joined the University at Buffalo Department of Chemistry in 1987 as an Assistant Professor. He is currently UB Distinguished Professor and holder of the endowed A. Conger Goodyear Chair.

Frank's research group aims to quantify key molecular-level interactions and exploit this information to develop new and improved analytical methods. Specific areas of interest include: (1) biomolecule dynamics within restricted space, (2) hybrid sol–gel-derived xerogels as chemical sensor platforms, (3) tunable, biodegradable constructs to augment wound repair, (4) supercritical fluid science and technology, (5) multi-photon excitation strategies in chemical analysis, and (6) laser-based chemical instrumentation.

Over 220 peer-reviewed publications have appeared from his group on these subjects.

This research has enjoyed generous support from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Office of Naval Research, the National Institutes of Health, and private industry. Twenty-seven students have earned advanced degrees under his direct supervision and 11 co-workers are currently studying in his laboratories. Frank has served on the editorial board of Analytical Chemistry. He currently is serving on the Applied Spectroscopy, Analytica Chimica Acta, and Journal of Fluorescence boards.

He has been awarded the 3 M Non-Tenured Faculty Award (1988–1991), the Eastern New York American Chemical Society Buck-Whitney Medal (1999), the New York Section of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy Gold Medal (2003), the Akron Section of the American Chemical Society Award (2003), and the A.A. Benedetti-Pichler Award in Microchemistry (2005).

When and why did you first become interested in sensors?

I was a graduate student with Linda McGown in late 1984, I was finishing up my PhD, and I had applied to several research groups for possible postdoctoral positions. I was making my decision about where to study next and I was looking at the research groups, research areas, etc. and it became clear to me that I had somehow selected to apply largely to research groups that were involved to some degree in what was at the time called fiber optic-based sensors. Much of this research was being pushed by the pioneering efforts of Rudi Seitz and Otto Wolfbeis amongst others who published some really innovative papers in the 1980s.

When I started my postdoctoral studies with Gary Hieftje (in 1985) he and his group were just getting into optical fiber-based sensors, coupling them to lasers, and performing remote measurements with optical fibers. At the time I joined the Hieftje group we were amongst the first to perform time-resolved fluorescence measurements using optical fibers—maybe late 1985. At that moment too we began to explore putting chemistry at the distal end of the optical fiber and using the immobilized chemistry to respond to the presence of a target analyte.

When did you first realise that your research would be patentable and what did that mean to you?

One of the nice things about working in the Hieftje group was that they were into almost everything spectroscopic. This included research areas ranging from inductively coupled plasma diagnostics to spectroscopy through optical fibers to near infra-red spectroscopy. Hieftje and his associates published extensively and patented several innovations. The most successful of the patented technologies is likely the Smith–Hieftje background correction method used widely in atomic absorbance spectroscopy. This was developed well before my time in the Hieftje group, but it caused me to take pause and think about how one’s research could become translated into a potential product. As it turns out, I was a tad slow on the uptake and it took about 10 years after arriving at UB for me to see a patentable idea from my laboratory and file our first technology disclosure. The actual patent was awarded about 3 years after our initial disclosure.

It is very nice to see research from your laboratory get transitioned into peer-reviewed papers and patents. It is also exciting to have companies interested in licensing the technology and strive to transition your research further into the market place. We have worked with fantastic companies over the years and it is always very interesting to see the link between academic laboratory research and the real world use of these devices and sensors to potentially solve real problems. Recently, we founded a local company, Tailored Sensors and Materials Inc., as a vehicle to better transfer our laboratory-based technology into the market place.

You are known for having said that one's smell “is a cocktail of hundreds of molecules. The question is whether it's a gin and tonic or a margarita.” Could you explain the thoughts behind this?

Yea, maybe not one of my best analogies or quotes!

A number of colleagues and I here at UB had been thinking about the issue of human biometrics. Biometrics refers primarily to the measurement of physiological and behavioural characteristics to automatically identify people. My colleagues and I founded a local research Center a few years ago to focus on this subject—the Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors (CUBS) http://wings.buffalo.edu/faculty/research/cubs/about.shtml.

Some folks at Business Week somehow learned of our ideas and they graciously asked me for an interview. Specifically, they asked me to describe something we are working on at the time. It turns out that we had started into the development of chemical sensor arrays that might (MIGHT!!) be able to discriminate between individuals (as a biometric) based on differences in an individual’s odor patterns.

This was not a new idea. It was new to us, for sure. Gary Beauchamp and coworkers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia have pioneered the idea that each individual has a unique odor. These so-called human odor “types” are coded by the highly variable major histocompatibility complex of genes. As an example, other researchers have shown that there are more than 200 distinct volatile organic compounds (VOCs) detectable in human breath alone. There is even one report in the literature on there being more that 3000 different VOCs detected in one person's breath. Yikes!

So with this as a backdrop I was asked by Business Week to think quick (always a very bad thing for me) and I said what we were working on was like trying to take the individual odors from a cocktail and determine what the cocktail is. So it is not just that it is a gin and tonic vs. a margarita vs. a beer, but that it is a gin and tonic made with Bombay Sapphire gin using diet tonic water and a lime from the east cost of Florida. More detail, data mining, authentication, learned responses, addressing background variations, etc.

A better description is that my colleagues Alexander Cartwright and Albert Titus (Electrical Engineering), Venu Govindaraju (Computer Science), and Wesley L. Hicks (Attending Surgeon at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute) and our junior research scholars are trying to develop new high-density sensor-based devices that can exploit odor for (1) biometrics and (2) as a an early disease diagnostic tool.

What do you find to be the most rewarding aspect of your career to date?

People. Working with students and postdoctoral fellows is fantastic. It is wonderful to work with young people as they begin their studies with you and to have an opportunity to help them to grow and mature as people and as scholars. It is very rewarding to look at the row of PhD/MA thesis is my office and know I had a small role in the lives of these young researchers. It is a sad and simultaneously rewarding day when these young people leave our laboratory, but it is very rewarding to look at how they are each contributing today.

If you had to choose one of your papers as being one that gives you most pride, which would that be and why?

I give a lecture each summer before classes begin to some of our incoming freshman. During my presentation I tell them to decide on a major based on what they are passionate about. With this as a backdrop, my initial response to your question was that it is sort of like asking which of your children you love the most. No matter what you say, it is the wrong answer. However, when I thought about your question more, I came up with a pair of papers that do not have anything at all to do with “sensors” or that are cited particularly often (Appl. Spectrosc., 1990, 44, 1196–1202; Appl. Spectrosc., 1990, 44, 1203–1209). These are back-to-back papers by Tom Betts (now Professor at Kutztown State University) where he built the first instrument for and performed the first transient solvation experiments in a supercritical fluid. These papers give me pride because this was a totally new research area for us and we had two Reviewers in the late 1980s claim that such experiments were basically impossible. Tom really stuck with this project, as have each of my current and former students, and he made everything work as we planned. These papers opened an entirely new research area for me and my students and they show that it really pays to be passionate!

What methods do you find most effective for motivating students to develop a career in analytical chemistry?

Analytical chemistry is a problem-solving discipline. Problems can best be solved by persons who have a broad background. With such a background, an individual can view the problem from several alternative vantage points, choose the best approach, and solve the problem efficiently.

In the Class Room. As a classroom professor my task is to help students to master a particular subject. However, before I simply leap into one topic after another I have found it useful to craft a compelling case for each topic. For example, I have found it useful to preface a discussion on a topic with one or more hypothetical scenarios wherein I propose to the class that we want to determine something specific about a sample or a system. I then move on to consider the problem in a bit more detail (making the determination in question) and then begin the discussion of the intended topic as a solution (not the only solution, just one of many possible solutions) to the aforementioned problem. I find that this approach gives students an appreciation of how the subject matter they are about to learn can be used to address key questions in structure, dynamics, genomics, proteomics, single molecule experiments or the analysis of real samples, etc. These topics are generally way outside the normal topical scope we cover in lectures, but they represent the fabric of modern analytical science in academia and industry. One example I like to use from time to time is the sequencing of the human genome. With this as the stated goal one can ask about what is needed and begin to easily introduce topics like energy-level diagrams, absorbance, fluorescence, Raman scattering, and strategies for single molecule detection. It is also relatively easy to reweave the question so as to introduce topics in the separation sciences or mass spectrometry. All in all, I find it useful to provide students a problem to be solved first as the entry point into discussions on instrumentation, methods, or techniques.

In the Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory. In the undergraduate laboratory, I try and teach analytical thinking and logic. I try to teach students to consider the possible outcomes of an experiment before they are in hand. This helps to more effectively formulate research questions/hypothesis, design proper experiments, and interpret results. I also try to emphasize simple, back of the envelope calculations as a way to provide a ballpark estimate. It is very gratifying and empowering for students when they see that their results match one of their predictions/hypothesis.

I also like to have more open-ended experiments at the end of the term where students can use the tools they have mastered to address more discovery-based issues. In this approach the sky's the limit and the students can bring to bear any instrumentation they have mastered to solve the problem and answer the questions. In many cases, students do not actually solve the problem, but more often than not they make a major dent in the problem.

In the Research Laboratory. The normal progress toward an advanced degree requires students to pursue a narrow area of science. How does one obtain a broad background then? It is possible for a student to obtain the necessary breadth while still pursuing a relatively narrow research program if their environment is appropriate.

In the Bright group, an attempt is made to create such an environment by having individual group members (high school students, undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars) engage in a variety of projects. Not surprisingly, the closest communication during one’s studies is with their peers, especially those in one’s own research group. If individuals one sees on a day-to-day basis are engaged in a range of research activities, one cannot help but learn from their colleagues. As a result, a student can pursue their own research problem effectively and efficiently while still learning new subject matter.

A student's breadth can be enhanced further if they pursue more than one research problem/theme during their studies. This simultaneous pursuit of several projects is advantageous in other ways. For example, it is not uncommon for a research project to encounter serious stumbling blocks. Repeated attempts to solve these problems can often result in frustration and it is good under such circumstances to have a second project to work on for a period of time. While the second project is engaged, the solution to the original problem will often present itself. Regardless, it is often the case that pursuing two or three projects simultaneously will produce results more than two or three times as fast.

In many cases, research projects are pursued by two or more students. In this way, the interaction mentioned earlier is enhanced and projects proceed more rapidly. Ordinarily, one group member will be designated (or will naturally emerge) as the team leader. This arrangement generates valuable experience and it is encouraged.

In joint projects, not all individuals can or will contribute equally. Students should not be concerned about unequal contributions initially but rather be concerned about their own input to the effort. Cooperation is a key ingredient of top-flight research and it is required in most jobs.

Finally, students in the Bright group are encouraged to pursue projects of their own choosing or ones that they devise themselves. In this way, student enthusiasm is increased and students will bring new ideas and/or technologies into the group. Of course, the freedom to choose individual projects is limited by the need to support them from external funds.

If you could make only one revolutionary scientific breakthrough in the future, what would you most like it to be and why?

I have an academic family tree on my office wall that goes back to ca.1640. It contains a very impressive listing of scientists and interconnections over the last few centuries. With this as a backdrop, I would like to be the major professor for a future Nobel Prize winner. Although I am very excited about all the things we are doing in the laboratory and I could easily say that it would be cool to develop something akin to a real Tricorder—it would be very cool—I would much rather be able to say that I sparked the interests of a new generation of revolutionary scientific thinkers. As Socrates wrote, “The object of learning is not to fill a vessel but rather to ignite a fire.” I love igniting fires in young researchers.

Who was inspirational to you in choosing analytical science as your career path?

I had a high school chemistry teacher named Dave Williams. He sparked my interest in science. As an undergraduate, I was fortunate to take freshman chemistry from Jim Ifft and Jay Roberts. These were two very passionate men who cared deeply for their students. I was lucky enough to conduct research with Roberts on the effects of superoxide on DDT. Interestingly, the first independent experiment I ever did with Roberts ended up blowing up in the fume hood and it destroyed the entire apparatus. You learn a lot when you have to repair your own mistakes! Horacio Mottola taught me most of the analyticial chemistry I learned during graduate school. Linda McGown, my PhD supervisor, was the first person to teach me how to really think analytical. She also taught me how to try and craft a logical argument. Gary Hieftje taught me how to write, to manage a research group, and how to work with people. Hieftje also taught me to not be afraid, to be passionate, and to think outside the box. Chuck Eckert, my host at Georgia Tech during my first sabbatical taught me to ask, “what do we win if we win?” Finally, the late Robert Osteryoung, who hired me at UB, taught me science could be great fun and life is short.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time when not pursuing scientific interests?

My wife and I enjoy working in the yard and gardens and hanging around by the pool (summers). In the winter we like to snow shoe. We enjoy travelling together as our schedules allow. I also enjoy wood working.

Can you tell us a little known fact about yourself?

I enjoy hunting; I hunt almost exclusively with a handgun.

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