Bioinspired Soft Materials

Nontechnical Abstract: The Brandeis Bioinspired Soft Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) seeks to engineer new materials that capture the remarkable functionalities found in living organisms. To realize this vision the Center synergistically focuses on two topics at the forefront of Soft Materials research. The first, Self-Limiting Assembly, adopts a bioinspired approach to develop a suite of building blocks which undergo equilibrium self-assembly that terminates at a prescribed finite-size. Learning to engineer self-limiting structures is enabling the scalable design of new functional and adaptable materials, such as paintable photonic coatings and capsids for drug therapy including general strategies to deactivate virus infection, including covid-19. The second, Soft Active Materials, is inspired by the remarkable capabilities of living cells, with their abilities to sense, self-heal and move. This MRSEC is establishing the principles to design, measure and control the forces in active materials to generate rapidly reconfigurable life-like materials, with applications in fields as diverse as robotics, microfluidics and adaptive optics. The MRSEC emphasizes human resource development for the STEM workforce. To facilitate this is the MRSEC's SciComm Lab comprising science graduate students and postdocs trained to become effective communicators and peer mentors. These SciComm Lab mentors train their peers in the skills they need to communicate their science to disparate audiences ranging from future employers to a diverse, non-scientific public. The Path-to-Professorship Program, aimed at providing superior postdoctoral fellow training for underrepresented minorities in cutting-edge materials research and designed to prepare individuals for assuming full-time faculty positions.

Technical Abstract: The Brandeis Bioinspired Soft Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC)is engineering new materials that capture the remarkable functionalities found in living organisms. The Center is organized into two Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRG). IRG1, Self-Limiting Assembly, addresses a grand challenge in soft materials science, the self-assembly of complex and functional materials. While living systems routinely achieve size-controlled assembly, synthetic approaches lag far behind. IRG1 adopts a bioinspired approach to develop a suite of building blocks which undergo equilibrium self-assembly that self-terminates at a prescribed finite-size. Learning to engineer self-limiting structures is enabling scalable design of new functional and adaptable materials, such as paintable photonic coatings and capsids for drug and gene therapy. IRG2, Soft Active Materials, is inspired by the remarkable capabilities of living cells, such as crawling, reconfiguring, and regenerating which are driven by energy-consuming molecular motors. An unmet grand challenge is to construct artificial active materials with active stresses designed to produce a desired function. This is leading to the next generation of active materials that are robust and exhibit long-lived programmable dynamics, thus paving the way to applications. This MRSEC emphasizes human resource development for the STEM workforce. To facilitate this is the MRSEC's SciComm Lab comprising science graduate students and postdocs trained to become effective communicators and peer mentors. The Path-to-Professorship Program, aimed at providing superior postdoctoral fellow training for underrepresented minorities in cutting-edge materials research and designed to prepare individuals for assuming full-time faculty positions.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.