Welcome!

Biological systems can do things no synthetic materials can. Organisms, for example, routinely self-replicate, self-heal, and adaptively change form. Unique forms of spatial organization arise in biology over at least 10 orders of magnitude; this complex structure and its ensuing function are entirely self-assembled.

Biology achieves these feats by structuring matter in a very different way than we tend to as materials and chemical engineers. Cells have fluid interiors consisting of thousands of different type of functional elements (molecules) that can move around and interact with each other. Most of these cellular components can act as control elements or structural supports, and many to some extent act as both. While the molecules that comprise cells are simple, together cells are incredibly sophisticated. And unlike most materials we build, biological systems expend energy to constantly build new components from nearby raw materials and break down old, unneeded structures.

We are learning how to build at the molecular scale the way biology does, and to use this knowledge to build new tools for medicine and nanotechnology. We are also hoping to learn something about the design challenges organisms face. We use techniques from structural DNA nanotechnology, in which we use synthetic DNA as a building material.

You can learn more about our research here.