Bruce Hinds: Nanotech for Nicotine Skin Patch at UK

Bruce Hinds (William T. Bryan Professor in Materials Engineering at the University of Kentucky) discovered how to pump fluids through nanotubes just as fast as Nature can pump them through cell walls. In January 2012, top-tier journal “Nature Nanotechnology” featured this discovery. Hinds's nanoscale ion pumps could soon be used to capture energy, purify water, and treat nicotine addiction.

Hinds’s prototype nicotine skin patch can be turned on and off via Bluetooth, using a smartphone app. Hinds says, “In many ways I consider addiction treatment a grand challenge because it’s so complicated. You’ve got the changing neurological chemical paths, there’s very important neurochemistry going on, but then you also have the psychological cues. Hopefully this device can link those two worlds together in terms of addiction treatment.”

Hinds credits the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CeNSE) with drawing him to UK 10 years ago: “As a scientist you have these wild ideas, you’re always welcome to write a proposal, but if the equipment’s not around you’ll never get funded. You pretty much have to show the experiment’s going to work before you’ll get the funding. So I saw CeNSE as an opportunity to try great new ideas.”

Produced by Alicia P. Gregory (Research Communications), videography/direction by Chad Rumford (Research Communications)