Biomolecular Materials and Processes

Consensus

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Scientists have long desired to create synthetic systems that function with the precision and efficiency of biological systems. Using new techniques, researchers are now uncovering principles that could allow the creation of synthetic materials that can perform tasks as precise as biological systems. To assess the current work and future promise of the biology-materials science intersection, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation asked the NRC to identify the most compelling questions and opportunities at this interface, suggest strategies to address them, and consider connections with national priorities such as healthcare and economic growth. This book presents a discussion of principles governing biomaterial design, a description of advanced materials for selected functions such as energy and national security, an assessment of biomolecular materials research tools, and an examination of infrastructure and resources for bridging biological and materials science.

Publication information

170 pages · 7 x 10 · paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-11704-6
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-11705-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/12159

Suggested citation

National Research Council. 2008. Inspired by Biology: From Molecules to Materials to Machines. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

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Arup K. Chakraborty

ARUP K. CHAKRABORTY is Robert T. Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Chemistry, and Professor of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He recently moved to MIT from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was Warren and Katherine Schlinger Distinguished Professor, chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, and Professor of Chemistry. He received his B. of Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware. Dr. Chakraborty's primary research interests are now focused on intercellular communication that results in activation of the adaptive immune response. His interests also include biosensors, polymer science, membranes, and interfacial phenomena. He is primarily concerned with developing quantum and statistical mechanical descriptions to elucidate pertinent issues in these areas. His honors include the 1994 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, National Young Investigator Award, Shell Young Faculty Professorship, 1996 Allan P. Colburn Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), Miller Institute for Basic Science Research Professorship, ICI Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (U.K.), Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement from the University of Delaware, and Professional Progress Award from AIChE. His teaching efforts were recognized by the UC Berkeley student chapter of AIChE with the Appreciation for Distinguished Teaching Award and by UC Berkeley with the Department of Chemical Engineering Teaching Award. Arup Chakraborty was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2004.

Joanna Aizenberg

JOANNA AIZENBERG is a Member of Technical Staff with the Materials Research Department at Lucent Technologies. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Moscow State University, and Ph.D. in Structural Biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Her research interests are in hybrid organic/inorganic systems, which display "high-tech" properties, and the lessons that industry can borrow from them. Dr. Aizenberg's contributions in this area include the characterization of biological inorganic crystals and composite tissues and the seminal discoveries of unique optical devices formed by organisms - microlenses and optical fibers that outshine their technological analogs. Her honors include New Investigator Award in Chemistry and Biology of Mineralized Tissues, Arthur K. Doolittle Award of the American Chemical Society, Weizmann Institute Award for Academic Excellence, Young Investigator Award in Chemistry and Biology of Mineralized Tissues, Award of the Max-Planck Society in the field of Biology and Materials Science. Dr. Aizenberg is elected to the Board of Directors of the Materials Research Society (MRS). She recently chaired the MRS 2005 spring meeting, and will chair "Biomineralization" Gordon Research Conference in 2006. Dr. Aizenberg is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, Materials Research Society, and American Association for Advancement in Science.

Annelise E. Barron

ANNELISE E. BARRON is Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. She received her B.S. from the University of Washington, Seattle, and her Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley, both in chemical engineering. Her research program includes folding and self-assembling peptide mimics and novel approaches to DNA sequencing by microchannel electrophoresis. She is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the NIH and permanent member of the NIH Instrumentation and Systems Development Study Section. She has served on review panels for NIH, NSF, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She is also a member of the scientific advisory board of Arryx, Inc. Dr. Barron’s honors include DuPont Young Professor Award, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, Beckman Young Investigator Award, and NIH-NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow.

Ken A. Dill

KENNETH A. DILL is Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Biophysics and Associate Dean of Research for the School of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco. He is also a faculty biochemist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Dill earned an S.B. and S.M. in mechanical engineering from MIT, a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, San Diego, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. His research group uses computational biology and statistical mechanical modeling to explore the physical properties of proteins and how they fold as well the structure and physical properties of water. Dr. Dill is founder and co-director of the Bridging the Sciences Coalition, which brings together 16 societies representing 280,000 scientists and 140 companies to support innovation at the interface between the life and the physical sciences. He previously served as president and councilor of the Biophysical Society, councilor of the Protein Society, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the American Physical Society (APS). He currently chairs the Public Affairs Committee of the Biophysical Society. Dr. Dill is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, APS, and Biophysical Society, and serves on the editorial/advisory boards for Physical Biology, Protein Science, Protein Engineering, Biopolymers, Multiscale Modeling and Simulation, and Structure.

Sharon C. Glotzer

SHARON C. GLOTZER is a professor at the University of Michigan with an appointment that spans three departments: Physics, Chemical Engineering, and Macromolecular Science and Engineering. She received her physics Ph.D. from Boston University in 1993. She is a computational soft materials scientist specializing in nanomaterials theory. She has received the APS Goeppert-Award Award, Presidential Early Career Award, and Department of Commerce Bronze Medal, and was director of the Center for Theoretical and Computational Materials Science at NIST for several years. She is also vice chair of the APS Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics, vice chair of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum and has been involved in a nanomaterials theory center at Oat Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Glotzer is a member of the SSSC.

Yale E. Goldman

YALE E. GOLDMAN is professor of physiology and director of the Pennsylvania Muscle Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his B.S. from Northwestern University (1969) and M.D., Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (1975). Dr. Goldman’s research interests are in understanding the mechanism of molecular motors and protein synthesis by the ribosome, mechanochemistry, and structural dynamics. His research group uses novel biophysical techniques, including laser photolysis of ‘caged molecules,’ bifunctional fluorescent probes, single molecule fluorescence polarization, and optical traps to map the real-time domain motions of proteins. Dr. Goldman is former President of the Biophysical Society. His honors include the Upjohn Achievement Award from the University of Pennsylvania, a Research Fellowship from the Muscular Dystrophy Association, National Research Service Award (NIH), Research Career Development Award (NIH), MERIT Award (NIH), Bowditch Lecturer of the American Physiological Society, Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching, and Lamport Lecturer of the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Elias Greenbaum

ELIAS GREENBAUM is a Corporate Fellow and group leader at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an adjunct professor in the University of Tennessee's Genome Science and Technology program. He received his B.S. degree in physics from Brooklyn College and his Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics from Columbia University. Dr. Greenbaum's main area of research is in the field of photosynthesis and materials science and their applications to artificial sight, nanoscale science and technology, biosensor development, and renewable hydrogen production. He was named 2000 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Scientist-of-the-Year and received the 1995 Department of Energy's Biological and Chemical Technologies Research Program Award and several UT-Battelle, LLC, and Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation awards. He also founded DOE's artificial sight program. Dr. Greenbaum led the team that won a 2005 Federal Laboratory Consortium Award of Excellence in Technology Transfer for AquaSentinel Real-Time Water Supply Protection Monitoring Biosensor System. Dr. Greenbaum is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He served as a member of the publications committees of the Biophysical Society and the American Institute of Physics and advisory panels and review committees for the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Greenbaum was a Watkins Visiting Professor at Wichita State University, where he presented a series of lectures on photosynthesis, biotechnology, and renewable energy production.

W. J. Kao

WEIYUAN JOHN KAO is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received his B.S.E. degree in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and M.S.E. in biomedical engineering and Ph.D. in macromolecular science from Case Western Reserve University. He held a dual appointment as a postdoctoral research associate in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland and in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Kao's research focuses on the role of biomaterials in the management of various pathological conditions. Specifically, he is interested in elucidating the mechanisms of cell adhesion and activation on biomaterials, delineating the critical factors in material biocompatibility and biodegradation, and developing enabling technology in the synthesis of novel materials for tissue engineering. He is Chair of the Society for Biomaterials’ Education and Professional Development Student Affairs Task Force.

David Needham

DAVID NEEDHAM is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University. He also holds appointments as Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Associate Professor, Center for Cellular and Biosurface Engineering; and Associate Professor, Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. He received his B.S. in Applied Chemistry from Trent Polytechnic and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Nottingham. Dr. Needham’s research interests are in the material properties of lipid monolayers, bilayer membranes, hydrogels, wax particles, emulsions, gas bubbles, and cells; and adhesion and repulsion involving molecular structures at interfaces including water-soluble polymers and receptor-mediated cell adhesion. His honors include the F. I. R. S. T. Award from the National Institutes of Health, Alfred M. Hunt Faculty Scholarship, NATO/SERC (England) Fellowship, and Oppenheimer Research Fellowship.

V. A. Parsegian

V. ADRIAN PARSEGIAN is Chief of the Laboratory of Physical and Structural Biology at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He received an A.B. in physics from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University. His research has provided fundamental contributions to the study of intermolecular forces in biological systems through measuring, formulating, computing, and gauging the consequences of forces that organize biomolecules. His work has included the theory and measurement of intermolecular forces, ion-transport across cell membranes, protein confirmation, colloids, aqueous interfaces, liquid-crystals of lipids, protein, and nucleic acids. He is a fellow of the Biophysical Society, its former President, and he received the Society's Distinguished Service Award in 1995. He is also the recipient of the NIH Director's Award, the institutes' highest award. He has just published a book, Van der Waals Forces: A Handbook for Biologists, Chemists, Engineers, and Physicists, the first of an intended series of texts to make the physics of intermolecular forces accessible to those without a background in advanced physics.

Alan S. Rudolph

ALAN RUDOLPH is President and CEO of Adlyfe, Inc. Dr. Rudolph has led research and development programs in biological self-assembly for over twenty years. He is currently spearheading an effort to develop novel technologies in the private sector as an active CEO of a small biotechnology start-up, and nurture emerging technologies through his consulting practice and board positions on foundations. Prior to this assignment, Dr. Rudolph was Chief of Biological Sciences for the Defense Sciences Office at DARPA where he managed a $40M life sciences portfolio in academia and industry, focusing on early risk reduction toward prototype development and technology transfer. His position at DARPA was to invest and manage high risk, high pay-off multidisciplinary research and development projects in biotechnology. These programs included the design and fabrication of useful interfaces for biological molecules, cells, and tissues for working devices (e.g. diagnostics, sensors, prosthetics). He has also explored the development of wireless devices with biological systems in order to better understand and develop emerging technologies. Dr. Rudolph is the author of 100 technical publications including seminal work in Nature and National Academy of Sciences and holds 15 patents, with 2 licensed for commercial development in drug delivery and medical imaging. He received his B.S. with highest honors in biology from the University of Michigan, a Ph.D., in Cell Biology at the University of California and an M.B.A from The George Washington University.

Cyrus R. Safinya

CYRUS R. SAFINYA is a Professor in the Materials, Physics, and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Departments at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He received a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Bates College and Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining the faculty of the University of California at Santa Barbara, he was a member of the technical staff at Exxon Research and Engineering Company in New Jersey and conducted research on the structure of complex fluids and biological membranes. Currently, his group's research is focused on elucidating structures and interactions of supramolecular assemblies of biological molecules. This includes the elucidation of key parameters which control the interactions between proteins derived from the eukaryotic nerve cell cytoskeleton and lead to hierarchical structures, with the ultimate goal of relating structure to function; understanding DNA interactions with oppositely charged biomolecules as relates to DNA packing; and developing synthetic carriers of genes and short-interfering RNA for gene delivery and silencing applications. He was a Henri De Rothschild Foundation Fellow, awarded by the Curie Institute, in 1994. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Charles F. Stevens

CHARLES F. STEVENS is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the Vincent J. Coates Professor of Molecular Neurobiology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in LaJolla, CA. Previously, he was Professor and Chair of the Section of Molecular Neurobiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Stevens' research centers on mechanisms responsible for synaptic transmission in the central nervous system, using a combination of molecular biological, electrophysiological, anatomical, and theoretical methods. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Stevens has chaired and served on a number of NRC committees. In addition to his publications in the field of neurobiology, he authored a book, titled The Six Core Theories of Modern Physics, which summarizes the basic theoretical structures of classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, quantum mechanics, statistical physics, special relativity, and quantum field theory. Dr. Stevens serves as an advisor to a telecommunications firm on the possible health effects of cell phone use. He received his M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine and his Ph.D. from Rockefeller University.

David A. Weitz

DAVID A. WEITZ is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard University. He received his B.S. in Physics from the University of Waterloo, and A.M. and Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University. Dr. Weitz’s research group studies the physics of soft condensed matter, materials which are easily deformed by external stresses, electric, magnetic or gravitational fields, or even by thermal fluctuations. These materials typically possess structures which are much larger than atomic or molecular scales; the structure and dynamics at the mesoscopic scales determine macroscopic physical properties. The goal of this research is to probe and understand the relationship between mesoscopic structure and bulk properties. Dr. Weitz is a fellow of the American Physical Society and received Exxon Incentive Awards in 1985 and 1981. He serves on the scientific advisory board of Cabot Corporation, Arryx Corporation, Max Planck Institute for Polymers, and the Center for Non-Linear Science at Los Alamos. Before coming to Harvard, Dr. Weitz was a Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania and a Physicist with Exxon Research and Engineering Co.

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Biomolecular Materials and Processes

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Biomolecular Materials and Processes

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Featured publication

Inspired by Biology: From Molecules to Materials to Machines

Description

Contributors

Committee

Sponsors

Staff

Major units and sub-units

Contact

Contact us

Provide feedback

Request materials

More like this

Review of the draft United by Nature assessment

Modernizing Mathematics Education for Grades 9-14

Health Care Financing to Improve Availability of Affordable Contraception: Identifying Promising Practices

Strengthening Southeast Asian Academia and Industry Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Safety and Security - A Workshop

Review of the draft United by Nature assessment

Modernizing Mathematics Education for Grades 9-14

Promoting Safe and Secure Science Through a Regional Middle East and South Asia Biological Sciences Conference

Communities, Climate Change, and Health Equity Workshop Series: Exploring flood adaptation strategies to support health equity

Artificial Intelligence and Automated Laboratories for Biotechnology: Leveraging Opportunities and Mitigating Risks--A Workshop