These 8 Iconoclastic Scientists Are Shaping Our Future

From implantable human ears made out of apples to eyeless fish to a new photovoltaic material set to outpace silicon, these eight scientists — all TED2016 Fellows — are making some unusual waves. Read about them below.

Prosanta Chakrabarty, Ichthyologist — US

Prosanta Chakrabarty shimmies into tight spaces in order to study the creatures that live there — namely, cave fishes. These mysterious 3-inch, eyeless freshwater fish dwell in cold subterranean waters, isolated from the rest of the world in closed ecological systems. Yet Prosanta has found that cave fishes 6,000 kilometres apart in Madagascar and Australia separated for 100 million years are genetically similar — offering us dramatic insight into how and when continents split, and helping us date and time geological events. In marine and freshwaters around the world, Prosanta has discovered more than a dozen new fish species, in the process helping to build a comprehensive picture of evolutionary patterns as well as protect the planet’s fish biodiversity in a race against habitat destruction and extinction.

Keolu Fox, geneticist/indigenous rights activist — US

The state of Hawaii has the longest life expectancy in the US — yet the life expectancy of Native Hawaiians averages a decade shorter, due to diseases like Type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer. Genetic research could help address this health disparity, but 96% of studies linking genetics and disease are performed on people of European ancestry, while fewer than 1% of such studies focus on indigenous people in the US. With his organization IndiGenomics, indigenous Hawaiian geneticist Keolu Fox is empowering indigenous communities to take genetic research into their own hands. He hopes mobile genetic sequencers—augmented with cloud computing and remote internet access—will allow indigenous populations to gather and analyze their own genetic data. He’s also creating a tribal consultation service to educate indigenous groups on the use and misuse of genetic information, and hopes someday to have a dedicated indigenous research institute that can train the next generation of indigenous scientists.

Laura Indolfi, biomedical entrepreneur — Italy/US

Despite leaps in cancer research in the last few decades, pancreatic cancer is persistently lethal, and the third leading cause of cancer death. The problem: pancreatic tumors are hard to remove because the organ is located deep in the abdomen, surrounded by vital organs, and chemotherapy is ineffective because the pancreas has few blood vessels, making medicine difficult to deliver. Biomedical engineer Laura Indolfi’s solution: a localized drug delivery system. A chemotherapy drug is embedded into a device that can be folded into a catheter, allowing doctors to implant it next to the tumor with minimal surgery. Once in the body, the device dissolves slowly, delivering the drug locally. This increases its efficacy by 12, while reducing side effects to the rest of the body. It also acts as a cage that physically controls the spread of the tumor.

Hélène Morlon, biodiversity mathematician — France

In order to understand how to preserve Earth’s biodiversity, we must look to the past. Hélène Morlon uses mathematics and supercomputers to analyze the genome sequences of life on the planet today in order to extrapolate where and how species diverged during evolution. By filling in as many blanks as we can on the phylogenetic tree and observing evolutionary patterns against changes on Earth over time, we can start to calculate how shifts in the environment now might affect life in the future. This is important because, while humans are only one of about 5,500 mammal species — and a relatively new one at that — our impact on the tree of life is already much higher than the asteroid that precipitated the extinction of dinosaurs. We have a responsibility to understand biodiversity not only for its own sake, but for our own survival.

Carrie Nugent, asteroid hunter — US

Carrie Nugent hunts asteroids. More precisely, she’s uses NASA’s NEOWISE telescope to locate, map, and track with incredible precision the movements of these irregularly shaped fragments left over from the creation of planets long ago. NEOWISE takes a pictures of the sky every 11 seconds, detecting asteroids in infrared light. Why track asteroids? 66 million years ago, an asteroid about 10 kilometers wide hit Earth, causing mass extinction, including the dinosaurs. While the likelihood of any individual dying of asteroid strike is extremely low, larger asteroids are a credible threat to the planet. In 2010, the scientific community hit a milestone, finding 90% of asteroids bigger than 1 kilometer across. This is great news: if we find an asteroid heading our way in time, with enough warning, we can predict and and prevent catastrophe.

Andrew Pelling, biohacker — Canada

At Andrew Pelling’s curiosity-driven lab, artists and scientists are encouraged to explore any idea they want, and pursue it with scientific vigor. One such idea: making biological scaffolding out of plant cellulose. After cleansing the living cells out of an apple slice with soap and water, Pelling and his colleagues implanted living human cells into the cellulose that remained. Just for fun, his wife even carved an apple into the shape of ears, creating a whimsical if grotesque way of demonstrating that living cells can indeed thrive in plant cellulose. Clinical tests will prove whether it’s possible to successfully implant the scaffolding into human bodies. Evidence so far is positive, promising a day we can repair, rebuild and augment our own bodies with materials we process in our kitchens.

Sam Stranks, solar energy researcher — Australia/UK

Lightweight, efficient, malleable: the future of solar energy may lie in hybrid perovskite, a man-made, cost-effective photovoltaic mineral that promises to one day outperform silicon. At MIT, Sam Stranks is scoping out the material’s potential, finding that it can be produced as transparent or opaque thin films. Imagine buildings with large, colorful windows that provide shade while also keeping the building powered. And layering existing solar panels with a perovskite layer boosts their energy-harnessing power. Hybrid perovskites can also be made into an ink — which means we may be able to someday print solar cells on easily transported sheets. And it’s amazingly efficient: half a cup of hybrid perovskite ink can run an average home. Perovskite is currently being tested to see if it can operate reliably over decades, but the future looks bright. The first commercial products should be available in a year.

Vanessa Wood, electrical engineer — US/Switzerland

We often ask why batteries can’t be better. Why can’t they charge faster, last longer on a single charge, be more resilient and less expensive? Electrical engineer Vanessa Wood is on the case. Her team at ETH Zurich used X-ray techniques to peer inside batteries as they work to understand their physical mechanics, and discovered that commonly used graphite—which expands and contracts when it charges and discharges, has a long route of particles that makes it hard for ions to travel, causing longer charge times. With this insight, Wood’s group is developing manufacturing methods that will align particles to facilitate a more efficient battery. In the long term, high-efficiency batteries mean much more than longer hours on our phones: being able to store intermittent renewable energies like wind and solar power would promise a giant leap forward into a sustainable future.

The TED Fellows program hand-picks young innovators from around the world to raise international awareness of their work and maximize their impact.