Toyoichi Tanaka; Discovered ‘Smart Gels’

Toyoichi Tanaka, 54, MIT physicist who discovered “smart gels,” a substance with potentially revolutionary applications, such as for making artificial muscles or cleaning up oil spills. In 1978 Tanaka made a gel--a semisolid blend of a fluid and a polymer--that could expand or contract in response to an environmental stimulus, such as a change in temperature. Tanaka understood the implications of this discovery and devoted himself to getting the gels to perform certain functions, such as release insulin and other pharmaceuticals and absorb toxic wastes. The first product to result from his work was a golf shoe liner that expanded to match the contour of the foot inside the shoe according to the foot’s temperature. He wanted to build artificial muscles out of smart gels because a muscle, he said, “just expands and contracts, and that’s what these gels are quite good at doing.” Tanaka believed that his work with gels shed light on the processes in protein synthesis and thus could provide a clue to the puzzle of how life on Earth began. Among Tanaka’s honors were the Vinci d’Excellence in 1993, the Toray Science and Technology Prize, and a 1996 award from Discover magazine for most promising technological innovation. On Saturday of heart failure in Cambridge, Mass.