Bart Gordon

Representing a mostly rural district in a Republican-leaning state, Gordon often touted his ability to work with members of the opposite party in passing bipartisan measures, often by unanimous vote, through his committee. During Gordon's two years as Science chair, he boasted that the panel passed 87 bipartisan measures, 86 by unanimous votes.

Gordon was a proponent of more rigorous curricula for math, science and technology education and investing more money in research-and-development so that the U.S. can remain academically and economically competitive. He was also one of the Hill's biggest advocates for nanotechnology, the branch of engineering that deals with things smaller than 100 nanometers, which can be used for medical and engineering innovation. Already, nanotechnology has been used in many commercial products, including lightweight sports equipment, stain-resistant clothing, pharmaceutical products, electronic devices and computer chips. Scientists hope that nanotechnology can be used to deliver chemotherapy drugs to cancerous tumors, for instance, whiole minimizing the amount of damage to healthy surrounding tissue. Nanotechnology is also contributing to improvements in medical imaging technology.

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