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Making Waves in Science

With the aid of computers and genetic breakthroughs, local researchers ride the tide of technology

Norman Pickering and Cleveland Orchestra director George Szell

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

By Michael Unger | Staff Writer

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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.