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ultimately makes me want to work harder. I have one year left now, and I want to make it count. I want to help Georgia State get to the NCAA Tournament.”
ALUMNI EYE OF THE SHARKNADO Scotty Mullen (B.A. ’13) is a writer and casting director for the sci-fi series featuring funnel clouds of flying sharks.
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BULL’S-EYE
A GEORGIA STATE PHYSICIST HELPS DISCOVER HOW TO TARGET CANCER CELLS WITH NANOTECHNOLOGY. “Metastasis” is a word no cancer patient wants to hear. It means a cancer has spread beyond the primary tumor and begun to invade other parts of the body. One cause of metastasis, circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are malignant cells that have detached from a tumor and hitched a ride in the bloodstream. But even with blood analysis, oncologists struggle to detect these CTCs as each cell can be lost amid millions of normal blood cells. But what if doctors could simply see CTCs right through the skin and destroy them on the spot?
ILLUSTRATION BYTHOMAS POROSTOCKY
Fourteen years ago, Mark Stockman, professor of physics and director of the Center for Nano-Optics at Georgia State, won attention for introducing a nanoparticle called a “spaser,” a sphere just a few hundred atoms across that can absorb and generate its own light. This past June, Stockman coauthored and published research in Nature Communications showing that these spasers can “stick” to malignant cells, such as CTCs, and destroy them. Once a cell absorbs a spaser that has been excited by a laser pulse, the cell
Made-for-television B-movies: They may never win an Emmy, but we watch them voraciously anyway for pure camp, humor and entertainment. Perhaps the genre’s most over- the-top specimen, the “Sharknado” movie series has gained a cult following for its outrageous storyline involving waterspouts that lift bloodthirsty sharks out of the ocean and drop them into Los Angeles. Student organizaThe plots are ritions covering arts, diculous by design, leadership, activism, and the moviemakrecreation, politics, ers are not afraid religion and more. to push the absurd to the extreme. “It’s pretty epic,” said Scotty Mullen, the writer and casting director for the latest installment, “Sharknado 5: Global Swarming,” which aired in August. “The ‘Sharknado’ movies are crazy — it’s 500 miles a minute,” he said. “Everybody loves to watch them. They’re so fun, especially during these crazy days we live in.” Mullen said he didn’t write for movies or television at the start of his career. Seriously, at least. Instead, he moved to Los Angeles to become a movie publicist. “I was having so much fun and making decent money, but there was a part of me that wasn’t fulfilled,” he said. “When I would go to the movie studios and talk to them about publicity, I felt like I was on the wrong side of the table — CONT’D ON P.15
becomes visible through a photodetector. With a stronger pulse, the spaser can then break apart the CTC from the inside, wiping it out. Stockman tested human breast cancer cells in the research and hopes clinicians can use his findings to develop new ways of targeting CTCs and other metastases. “Our work takes place on a nanoscale, but the potential applications are enormous,” said Stockman. “I hope cancer patients in the hospital benefit from what we’ve managed to achieve in the lab.”
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
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