Through evolution, nature has produced some of the greatest and most intelligent structures ever created in the earth, ranging in scale and complexity from DNA to the human brain. It remains a daunting challenge for humans to fully understand how diverse functional matters are self-assembled for biological systems, how complex system behaviour is emerged from fundamental properties of matters, and how to produce biocompatible, sustainable functional matter that not only are environmentally friendly, but also can survive dynamic impacts under extreme conditions. These matters are often self-assembled in “green” manner, which makes them very promising to serve as templates for inspiration in materials design and manufacturing. A deeper understanding of these structures may provide valuable insight to address some of the most important biological and engineering challenges currently facing our communities.
This talk will report our recent research progress on biologically derived and bio-inspired nanoparticles that can serve as fundamental building blocks for sensing, actuation and control in generating adaptive and functional matter with tunable mechanical, electrical and biochemical properties for applications in nanomedicine and robotics. These nanoparticles are proposed for cellular level targeting, imaging, tracking and delivering of chemical reagents, and creating controllable microenvironment for sustainable release of drugs. Examples of in vivo animal studies, including bio-inspired fluorescent peptide nanoparticles for cancer cell targeting, imaging and controlled drug delivery, nanoparticle-mediated peptide hydrogel for cardiovascular regeneration and wound healing, and Alzheimer’s disease detection, will be presented. The goal of this talk is to open discussions on how we may synergistically integrate underlying biological principles at molecular and cellular levels with engineering techniques to design and manufacture biocompatible, adaptive and functional matters for nanomedicine and robotics.
Sept. 14, 2018
For more details, please refer to Bio-inspired Nanoparticles as Building Blocks for Sensing, Actuation and Control in Nanomedicine and Soft Robotics