Organizers:
- Jingjie Yeo, Cornell University
- Si Chen, Cornell University
- Elizabeth J. Stewart, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
- Zhao Qin, Syracuse University
- Teng Zhang, Syracuse University
Description:
This symposium will explore the current status and future research trends in emerging living and bioinspired materials. Living materials are an emerging class of natural or engineered materials that are dynamically responsive to their environments with “living” characteristics such as self-healing and self-regeneration. Living materials are composites of organisms or cells (e.g. archaea, bacteria, fungi, animal cells, plant cells) and self-produced or artificial scaffolds (e.g. polymers, proteins, polysaccharides) with properties that differ from their constituent parts. The dynamic properties of living materials lead to the development of unique structures and material properties. Similarly, research on bioinspired materials aims to emulate the efficiency, sustainability, and innovative solutions found in natural biological structures, processes, and functions.
A wide range of theoretical, computational, data-driven, and experimental approaches are needed to design, characterize, and develop living and bioinspired materials into functional devices or parts. The symposium will enhance our understanding of the current state of the art in living and bioinspired materials, focusing on advances in understanding of their fundamental properties, process development, manufacturing, and device integration. The symposium will bring together international researchers from diverse fields, including engineering mechanics, biophysics, biochemistry, chemical engineering, and materials science and engineering, to share insights and discuss cutting-edge methods and applications at the intersection of materials science, synthetic biology, and engineering design.
Topics of interest:
- Experimental, theoretical, computational, and data-driven modeling, design, and characterization of living and bioinspired materials
- Developments in theoretical, numerical, and experimental methods for understanding and predicting the structure and mechanics of living and bioinspired materials
- Applications to the design of structures, parts and/or devices that contain living or bioinspired materials
- Synthesis, manufacturing, and growth of living and bioinspired materials for scalable applications and long-term sustainable use