Biography
Holocaust
Adam Heller was born in 1933 to Jewish parents inEducation
Heller received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. fromTechnology
Lithium batteries
With James J. Auborn and Kenneth W. French, Heller showed that unlike in water metallic lithium does not corrode in the boiling inorganic oxychlorides thionyl chloride or sulfuryl chloride. The metal's surface is passivated against corrosion by a thin film of lithium chloride. They introduced in 1973 the 3.6 V non-rechargeable lithium thionyl chloride battery, one of the first to be mass manufactured. Because of its lightweight lithium metal anode and its carbon cathode on which the thionyl chloride or sulfuryl chloride solvent of the electrolyte is electrocatalytically reduced, the battery's energy density is uniquely high, 1210 Wh/L and 720 Wh/kg. The battery's shelf-life of over 20 years derives of absence of lithium corrosion in thionyl chloride and in sulfuryl chloride. As of December 15, 2021, its manufacture continued.Painless blood glucose monitoring
In 1996, Heller co-founded with his son Ephraim Heller TheraSense, a company acquired by Abbott Laboratories in 2004 for $1.2 billion. The company is now Abbott Diabetes Care. Heller was the first Chief Technical Officer of TheraSense and as of December 2021 continued to consult to Abbott Diabetes Care. TheraSense introduced in 2000 the FreeStyle™ micro-coulometer, painlessly measuring the blood glucose concentration in 300 nanoliters of blood. The world's most widely used FreeStyle Libre™ continuous glucose monitoring system of Abbott Diabetes Care was introduced in 2016. Its subcutaneously implanted amperometric sensor utilizes concepts of Heller's glucose concentration to electron current transducing electrically wired glucose oxidase electrode maintaining a constant sensitivity through a polymeric membrane that controls the inflow of glucose.4-8Continuous oral delivery of L-DOPA for managing Parkinson's disease
Heller serves as Chief Scientific Officer of Synagile Corporation, a venture developing a continuous oral L-DOPA systems for managing advanced Parkinson's disease.Research
Neodymium liquid lasers
Heller showed in 1966 that the cause of radiationless relaxation of excited rare earth ions in solutions was energy transfer to hydrogen atom containing solvents that vibrate at high frequencies. By dissolving neodymium salts in selenium oxychloride, he created the first inorganic liquid lasers.Electrochemical solar cells and environmental photocatalysis
At Bell Laboratories (1975-1988), where he headed the Electronic Materials Research Department (1977-1988) and King L. Tai developed high-speed electronic and optoelectronic interconnection technologies, his personal studies centered on semiconductor liquid junction solar cells. His electrical power and hydrogen generating photoelectrochemical solar cells were the first to reach solar conversion efficiencies of 10%. At The University of Texas at Austin Heinz Gerischer and he showed in 1989-1991 that the rate of photo-assisted oxidation of organic compounds on titanium dioxide was not controlled by the rate of photogeneration of electron hole pairs, but by the rate of reduction of adsorbed oxygen by trapped electrons. With the floating titanium dioxide coated cenospheres, the residues of coal combustion, he and colleagues catalyzed the sunlight assisted oxidation of thin films of crude oil on water (1992-1995), then with Yaron Paz he made in 1993-1995 transparent titanium dioxide films on window glass that under sunlight catalytically oxidized organic contaminants.Electron conducting redox hydrogels
After discovering in 1987 at Bell Labs with Yinon Degani that the glycoprotein of glucose oxidase can be made electron conducting by covalently binding to it redox functions through which electrons hopped, Heller and his colleagues designed at the University of Texas between 1989 and 2005 electron conducting redox hydrogels, the first and only aqueous phases that conducted electrons, yet also dissolved ions and substrates and products of enzyme catalyzed reactions. Their hydrogels conduct electrons by collisional electron transfer between reduced and oxidized water-swollen polymer segments. By electrostatically bonding electron conducting gels having polycationic polymers and enzymes with polyanionic domains, they prevented the phase separation of differing macromolecules, then crosslinked on electrodes multilayers of electrically wired enzymes. To maintain the selectivity of the enzymes for their substrates and avoid electrooxidation of spurious biochemicals in biological fluids, the redox potentials of the hydrogels were kept neat the potentials of the reaction centers of the enzymes. Miniature electrodes coated with wired glucose oxidase transduced the concentration-dependent substrate flux to an to an electrical current, the current representing the turnover rate of reaction centers of the enzyme. The absence of leachable matter from wired enzyme electrodes enabled their use in the blood of animals and in their subcutaneous fluid. To maintain the constancy of the transduction of substrate concentration into an electrical current, Heller and his coworkers overcoated the “wired” enzyme electrodes with a stable polymer films that controlled the influx of the substrate and with a non-fouling hydrogel. These elements of design, first tested with a subcutaneously “wired” glucose oxidase electrode in a diabetic chimpanzee in 1998, were later improved on and became applied in the subcutaneously implanted glucose monitoring FreeStyle Libre™ systems of Abbott Diabetes Care, the most widely used for managing diabetes.Crystals in the Alzheimer’s disease entorhinal cortex
Heller's 2018-2020 studies revealed the presence of potentially pathogenic endogenous hydrated calcium oxalate crystals and exogenous titanium dioxide crystals in the ''substantia nigra'' of Parkinson's disease patients and in the entorhinal cortex of deceased Alzheimer's disease patients.Awards and recognition
In a 2008 White House ceremony, President George W. Bush awarded Adam Heller for his innovations in electrochemical diabetes management technologies the 2007 United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest technology award in the United States. For his electrochemical biosensors that improved the lives of diabetic people worldwide Heller was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009; was made the 78th Honorary Member of The Electrochemical Society in 2015; the 2019 Honorable Member of the Israel Chemical Society; received the 2014 Service to Society Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; the 2004 the Spiers Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK; the 2004 Charles N. Reilly Award of the Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry; the 2005 Fresenius Gold Medal and Prize of the Society of German Chemists; the 2008 Creative Invention of the American Chemical Society; the 2014 Torbern Bergman Medal of the Swedish Chemical Society (shared with Allen J. Bard); and in 2008, an Honorary Doctorate of Queen's College of the City University of New York. The German Diabetes Society named in 2020 one of its awards in his honor. For his radiation-less relaxation studies in liquids, liquid lasers, primary lithium thionyl chloride battery, 10% efficient electrochemical solar cells and environmental photocatalysis, he was made in 1982 Guest Professor of the college de France; was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 1987; received the 1994 Chemistry of Materials Awards of the American Chemical Society; the 1995 Engineering Practice Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; the 2015 Heinz Gerischer Prize of European Section of The Electrochemical Society; and was made in 1991an Honorary Doctor of Uppsala University in Sweden. For his contributions to electrochemical science and technology he received the 1978 Award of the Battery Division of The Electrochemical Society; the 1988 Vittorio de Nora Award of The Electrochemical Society; the 1987 David C. Grahame Award of the Physical Electrochemistry Division of The Electrochemical Society; and the 1996 Faraday Medal of the electrochemistry section of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK.References
Further reading
* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Heller, Adam 1933 births Living people Romanian Jews Hungarian Jews Israeli emigrants to the United States