CONTACTS: Gail Brown gbrown@instadv.ucsb.edu (805) 893-7220
Joan Magruder jmagrude@instadv.ucsb.edu (805) 893-3071
Dec. 7, 2000
BACKGROUND:
UC Santa Barbara Professors Talk about Nanotechnology Research and the New California NanoSystems Institute:
Evelyn Hu, professor of electrical and computer engineering and the scientific director of the new NanoSystems Institute, published a pathbreaking paper in Nature in June. She explains her work in the successful binding of biological material to inorganic semiconducting materials, "The techniques we have developed for working with semiconducting materials on the microscale are not adequate for working on the nanoscale, which is orders of magnitude smaller. We face challenges in how to integrate nanoscale components to build complex structures, but nature does just that all the time. So the idea behind this research is to mimic nature and build electronic devices the way nature would."
Daniel Morse, professor of molecular biology and chair of the graduate
program in biomolecular science and engineering, developed the new field of ‘Silicon Biotechnology’ through studies of the mechanisms that simple marine organisms like sponges use to build nanostructures from silicon. "Biology builds exquisite structures from minerals - like pearls and shells and bones - with a precision of nanoscale architectural control that exceeds the present capabilities of human engineering," he said. "By cloning the genes and analyzing the proteins that control the biological synthesis of these materials, we've been able to discover Nature's secret, and we're now starting to harness these mechanisms to make semiconductors and electronic materials with increased precision. We're learning from biology how to develop new, environmentally friendly routes to the synthesis of ultra-small electronic, magnetic and light-carrying materials."
Martin Moskovits, dean of the Division of Mathematics, Life and Physical Sciences in the College of Letters and Science will play a leadership role. He commented that, "the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) will help elevate an already outstanding level of research activity at UCSB in advanced materials research and nanotechnology. UCSB's two recent Nobels, Professor Alan Heeger and Herb Kroemer foreshadowed through their work many of the most important aspects of Nanotechnology. UCSB can be regarded as one of the founders of Nanotech.
"Nanotechnology is a new paradigm through which new materials with novel and useful properties can be created by controlling their submicroscopic structure. Nanotechnology can potentially have a revolutionary impact in areas as diverse as electronics, data storage, quantum computing, drug delivery, engineered biomaterials, catalysis and novel energy sources.
"Nanotechnology has raised some public concern. This stems more from the science-fiction aspect of what people regard to be Nanotechnology rather than the science fact. Rest assured that the creation of tiny nano-gremlins that run amok causing havoc is nowhere in our plans. For us, nanotechnology is the synthesis and engineering of new materials properties based on the controlled design of their submicroscopic structure. Nanotechnology is the ultimate in interdisciplinary activities making simultaneous use of the talents of chemists, biologists, physicists and engineers in taking advantage of all of its manifold promises. UCSB's highly interdisciplinary culture together with our outstanding stature in materials makes us the ideal venue for the CNSI."
NANOTECHNOLOGY COMMENTS
Matthew Tirrell, dean of the College of Engineering, is pursuing current research on bio-compatibility of medical devices or making living cells "happy" when they are in contact with a synthetic solid. He explains that, "cells in living creatures typically exist in an extracellular matrix, which has regions (peptides) to which the cells bind. The trick is chemically to synthesize mimics of those peptides and create a molecule that, on the one hand, attaches to a synthetic solid and, on the other hand, displays the peptide. The peptide display is important because it signals "do not eat me" and "do not destroy me" to catalytic enzymes and to the immune system. The idea is to cause to grow on plastic the cells that grow on the inside of blood vessels, and not only to grow but to be healthy for a long period of time. To do that, our research group is trying to figure out how to attach to the surface of the plastic tube the right mixture of signaling molecules. We are now looking at how to make cells grow better on plastic by decorating the surface of the plastic with specially designed peptide display molecules. We are creating surfaces with structural control at the nanoscale which exchange information with biological systems."
Galen Stucky, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, published a paper in Nature in November describing a new material with many potential applications at the nanoscale. "Essentially, we take soap (a surfactant or emulsifier) and sand (silica) along with whatever other optical or electronic component that we might wish to incorporate, then we put them together to make materials which are beautifully structured and easily processed. The materials can be used to make all sorts of things – from fibers to films, to lasers and sensors. They can be used to create nanostructured, highly organized three-dimensional biochemical enzyme factories, to sense biotoxins and for the removal of toxic heavy metals from the environment. We can make pores as big as any protein. So we can separate or selectively package biomolecules, such as proteins, or DNA, in a way that makes them readily accessible for use."
Alison Butler, professor of chemistry and biochemistry and the new associate dean for bioengineering, discovered a new class of the self-assembling peptide nanoparticles produced by marine bacteria to acquire iron in the open ocean, as reported in the journal Science in February. "Not only are these nano assemblies fascinating from the standpoint of how they deliver iron to bacteria, an essential growth nutrient, but their unique chemistries pose unbounded opportunities to make new catalytic materials and even new vehicles for drug delivery," she said. "We are also working with Galen Stucky to create enzyme factories using his new silicate nanomaterials, which are beautifully suited for biotech applications. We are stretching the limits of reactivity and even introducing new activities to the enzymes in the nanopore materials."
JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, professor and director of the Center for Research Electronic Art, Technology and Music, associate dean of computing and technology in the College of Arts and Science and program director of the Digital Media Innovation Program will participate in the new Institute. She explained, "we are reaching the limitations of materials used in digital multimedia systems in order to take computing to the next level. What do I mean by the next level? Three-dimensional immersive virtual environments that will allow you to walk through virtual worlds, computing on the head of a pin, making technology so transparent that it is integrated into basic aspects of everyday life. We need new materials restructured at the nanoscale level in order to achieve these milestones. For these reasons, digital multimedia and information technologies are essential to nanosystems research. As part of the CNSI, UCSB is planning a digital multimedia and information technologies component that will bring together, scientists, artists, engineers and materials researchers, all of whom are testing the limits of large scale visualization and auralization, high speed computing, terabyte storage and data mining.
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