Mary Jane Cunningham, PhD
Director, Toxicology Programs
Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC)

Educational path
· BA with a double major in chemistry and biology
· PhD in Physiological Chemistry with a minor in chemical carcinogenesis; two postdoctoral fellowships – completed with one in prostate cancer research (academic) and one in genetic toxicology (industrial).

Special training for nanotechnology
None, research focus has evolved into performing cutting-edge research in toxicogenomics and using these technologies to look at safety of various nanomaterials.

Tips/Advice to jumpstart a career in nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is becoming a very multi-disciplined field; getting expertise in one area and then being able to work on multidisciplinary teams is essential.

Why did you choose the field of nanotechnology?
I was initially interested in nanotechnology from a technology standpoint. The OMICs (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, pharmacogenomics which all make up technologies looking at toxicity issues and become toxicogenomics) technologies are currently based on new gene and protein information and operate on the microscale level. In order to make these technologies more high-throughput and able to screen more efficiently, they will need to be developed on a nanoscale level. As I was keeping up with the bioMEMs field (electronic sensors, etc.), the issue arose of how safe these newly engineered nanomaterials are. My research interests matched this new area of focus quite readily.

How did you first get into nanotechnology?
With the issues of the safety of engineered nanomaterials arising, I pursued concepts of intertwining systems biology with toxicogenomics to look at the safety of these materials. This type of research had not been done before and was readily funded by the National Science Foundation under the National Nanotechnology Initiative.

What is it like to work in nanotechnology?
It's very exciting. My research merges many “hot" areas together: new information gathered on genes and proteins from the Human Genome Project, new technologies being used to screen for efficacy and toxicity of various compounds, systems biology approaches where in silico modeling is being used to predict compound-cellular interactions and a new area of engineered materials for which applications and new assays for safety are now being developed.