Making Waves in Science

Norman Pickering gives an audio pickup to Cleveland Orchestra director George Szell in 1946. (Photo Courtesy Norman Pickering)

IN THE ANCIENT DAYS of science, say about 25 years ago, two major technological advances came along about the same time: personal computers and genetic engineering, the ability of scientists to incorporate foreign genes into new drugs, species and crops.

Now the revolutions in DNA science and computer science are converging, creating powerful new tools to diagnose, treat and sometimes even cure life-threatening diseases, as well as increase agricultural production. Computers make it easier to analyze genes and parts of genes, find early breast tumors and remove them, and help hospitals to keep better track of patients' medications and doctors' findings.

Long Island continues to play a major role in the history and development of high-tech and biotech. Some of the Island's best-known materials scientists, molecular biologists, inventors and software gurus have helped to bring the region's economy into the computer and biomedical age.

"The breadth of convergence between the two industries gets broader every day," said James A. Hayward, chairman of Long Island's Collaborative Group of biotech companies. One example of this convergence, Hayward said, is the creation of new scientific disciplines, such as pharmacogenomics, by Long Island software, pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Some Long Island leaders in these fields have national reputations. And these scientific entrepreneurs continue to spin off new ideas, discoveries and companies. Among those who have contributed most to Long Island's growth in high technology and biomedical technology are these half-dozen individuals:

Jerome Swartz, who invented the hand-held bar-code laser scanner and went on to build one of Long Island's leading high-tech companies.

Swartz began developing his company in a little St. James industrial park and co-founded Symbol Technologies Inc. with fellow laser-engineer Shelley Harrison, now a Long Island venture capital manager.

The 23-year-old Symbol has grown into an $800-million company headquartered in Holtsville along the spine of the growing LIE high-tech corridor. It has produced more than 6 million bar-code scanners and terminals, and its latest computer models are used in retailing, transportation, logistics and distribution businesses.

Wireless computer systems are now the fastest-growing segment of Symbol's business.

Swartz earned an undergraduate engineering degree at the City University of New York and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Brooklyn Polytechnic University in 1968. He not only is Symbol's chairman and chief executive, but also remains chief scientist in charge of research and development. "R&D still reports to me personally," Swartz said proudly.

James D. Watson, who with a small coterie of scientists at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory helped start a revolution in molecular biology, molecular genetics and cancer research.

Watson also spearheaded the birth of the U.S. Human Genome Project, the biggest biomedical technology project ever undertaken, which has led to an understanding of the genetic underpinnings of disease and health.

He began his work at Cold Spring Harbor 50 years ago and became director of the lab in 1968. Besides building up the lab and its world-class faculty and facilities, Watson is best known and honored internationally for unraveling the structure of DNA, the material of which genes are made. Watson's famous "Double Helix" model won him a Nobel Prize for medicine in 1962, shared with two other scientists.

Much of the basic scientific groundwork that created a new paradigm for biomedical research at the molecular level was performed at the lab.

Watson has brought the disparate world science community together and pushed the project ahead of its 15-year schedule and possibly below its projected $15 billion cost.

As for Long Island's development as a center for biotech and biomedical research, it was Watson who pushed local legislators and Gov. George Pataki to come up with more than $14 million this year to create a biotechnology business incubator and research and education center at the State University at Farmingdale. Watson will serve as co-chairman of the new organization that will run the Farmingdale center and, as he puts it, "help keep some of our new biotechnology companies on Long Island."

Dr. Raymond V. Damadian, who discovered medical MRI scanning and in 1977 built the first MRI machine while a professor at Brooklyn Downstate Medical Center.

Damadian, who never practiced medicine but used his medical degree to increase his knowledge of physical biochemistry, was the first to incorporate computers, radio waves, magnetism and biochemistry to produce images of cancerous tissue without the use of X-rays.

He also put together the world's first commercial MRI machine while working on Long Island. These days, at his Fonar Corp. plant in Melville, Damadian's ultra-fast, open MRI machines gather images of human organs within minutes. His latest advance is a room-sized MRI machine that would enable doctors to move freely in operating rooms without being subjected to continual magnetic forces.

Damadian has successfully defended his MRI patents against the giants of the industry, bringing tens of millions of dollars to Fonar and its shareholders. Last year, Fonar won $128 million in a patent infringement suit against General Electric -- a sum that represents almost six times Fonar's annual revenues. Damadian plans to spend the money on more research and development, a stock buyback and the start-up of a subsidiary to manage physicians' practices.

Raymond Damadian, the father of three grown children, has his name on at least 30 of Fonar's 56 patents, the first dating to 1974. "We would like now to use MRI to help diagnose and treat cancer," said Damadian, 63. He is a holder of the National Medal of Technology, given by presidential decree, and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame sponsored by the U.S. Patent Office.

David B. Pall, the visionary scientist who helped the U.S. military develop some of the technology for the World War II-era Manhattan Project. Porous metal filters such as the ones Pall brought to the government made it possible to separate low-grade from weapons-grade uranium.

Pall Corp., based in East Hills, is now a $1.1-billion global business that specializes in making a huge array of filters, separation and clarification materials used for products as varied as blood and beer.

Pall, a transplanted Canadian, recently stepped down from the corporate board at age 84, shortly after the death of his wife Helen. Pall's greatest ally in making Pall Corp. a financial success was Abraham Krasnoff of Glen Cove, former chairman and the father of current chairman and chief executive Eric Krasnoff.

In a rare interview, Abe Krasnoff stood in for his friend David Pall, who was traveling abroad. Krasnoff said that after coming to the United States, Pall worked out a porous metal gaseous separation device and a porous metal filter.

A close friend, Bram Appel, gave him several thousand dollars to start Pall Corp. in 1944; he remains its largest shareholder.

Pall and Krasnoff met because they were buying homes near each other in Little Neck. "I joined David Pall in 1951 as a brand-new CPA," Krasnoff recalled.

Pall served as the prolific inventor and product innovator. "My presence there made it possible for this genius, David Pall, not to be diverted from his course of inventing, creating products and solving difficult technical problems of great use to society. If I have a proud aspect to my role, it's in letting a genius work freely," Krasnoff said.

Pall also invented filters for jet engines and pharmaceutical production. He created ways to keep industrial pollutants from going up the chimneys and smokestacks of heavy manufacturers.

Charles B. Wang, who, with three others, launched Computer Associates International Inc. with one product in 1976.

The Islandia-based business software company now has hundreds of products, and CA, as it is known, has become Long Island's most valuable company with a stock market capitalization of $30 billion.

A native of Shanghai, China, Wang grew up in Queens. He brought CA public in 1981 and has built it into the world's third-largest software company with sales of $4.5 billion. The method: He acquired more than 70 businesses, often holding on to the companies' technology and letting go many of the workers. More recently, CA has cultivated some homegrown products.

Wang is also an author, most recently writing "Techno Vision II: Every Executive's Guide to Understanding and Mastering Technology and the Internet" (McGraw-Hill, 1997). On the lighter side, he self-published a cookbook, "Wok Like a Man," whose proceeds go to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Wang, the most highly compensated executive of a public company on Long Island last year ($17.6 million), has spread his wealth around, contributing $10 million to Operation Smile's Smile Train, an initiative to repair cleft lips and palates of impoverished children.

In 1996, he endowed $25 million to a high-tech Asian American Center at the State University at Stony Brook.

Norman Pickering, the inventor/acoustical engineer/entrepreneur who made high-tech history on Long Island by helping give birth to the high-fidelity sound industry.

Pickering invented the magnetic cartridge with sapphire needle that played a crucial role in making such sound possible, and the commercial development of the audio industry that began with long-playing records after World War II.

Pickering founded his company on Long Island in 1945 in Oceanside; today it's headquartered in Plainview. Pickering will be 82 next month.

While his old pickup needles have long since been supplanted by newer technology, Pickering remains an acoustical music engineer and works mainly in a laboratory at his Southampton home, surrounded by his musical instruments, microphones and electronic equipment. He has done work for the Cleveland Orchestra and the late conductor George Szell, as well as for jazz legend Benny Goodman.

Pickering created a soundproof room for Goodman in the clarinetist's East Side apartment in the late 1950s. "Inventing is my business," Pickering said. "I still do it . . . but with inventing, sometimes it's very good to have a low profile."

Pickering was also a great friend of the late musical philanthropist Avery Fisher, for whom the New York Philharmonic's home at Lincoln Center was named.

Staff writer Richard J. Dalton Jr. contributed to this story.

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