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[I'm Vivek Kemp for GE Reports.]
[Today, we're starting a new series that we're calling the Genius Series]
[where we put a spotlight on GE employees who are driving innovation.]
[They maybe be inventors, engineers, chemists--]
[essentially they are the smartest people in the room]
[and they're making or doing things that will change the way we live.]
[Our first genius is a chemist who is creating sensors ]
[that may some day save your life.]
[Radislav Porteryllo is originally from Ukraine]
[He works at GE's chemical and biological sensing laboratory]
[and has received over 50 US patents.]
[A lot of what Radislav's work deals with]
[is creating battery-free sensors that detect chemical and biological agents ]
[The application of these sensors he hopes]
[will someday be used in monitoring emissions of power plants,]
[sensing the freshness of food in your refrigerator,]
[and even ensuring the purity of vaccines developed at the site of a viral outbreak.]
[Radislav's sensors will play a critical role]
[in keeping us healthy and safe.]
[Not everything Radislav does deals with high tech.]
[In fact, some of the best sensors, he says, come from things like butterfly wings.]
[Radislav talks to us today from his office in GE's Global Research Center ]
[Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today.]
[>> I guess it's fair to ask you if you consider yourself a genius?]
[Well, I truly believe that Thomas Edison, the founder of our company, ]
[>> As important as technology is in making sensors, ]
[you seem to find a lot of inspiration from nature.]
[Tell me a little bit about your work with butterflies.]
[[Radislav] We work with butterflies because we have found that the structures]
[of those butterfly wings, they are very nicely responding by color changes ]
[when we are exposing them to different types of gases in atmosphere,]
[and that helps us to develop the new types of sensors that can detect these gases]
[in a more sensitive and selective way.]
[The truth is that there are many structures in nature that can be used for technology.]
[I know from literature that only 5% or 10% of all the tricks that nature does,]
[has been used in technology.]
[>> In your 20-year career, Radislav, I'm certain that you've learned something]
[about yourself in all the research and work that you've done.]
[[Radislav] I learned how to be persistent, how to fail early, and of course, ]
[how to take advantage of a lot of smart people around us here]
[that are working together on different projects. ]
[>> It was a real pleasure to talk to you today. Thank you very much.]
