NIST Grant Supports Research on Biological Materials, Assembly Processes

Francis Starr, director of the College of Integrative Sciences, professor of physics, received a $282,000 grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in September.

The grant will support “Heterogeneous Dynamics and Assembly Processes in Soft and Biological Materials,” a collaborative research project between Wesleyan and NIST. NIST is expected to fund the project through 2018 with a total amount of $1.66M.

Soft and biological materials are commonly composed of synthetic or biopolymers, or are formed as a result of the supramolecular assembly of small molecule, nanoparticle, or protein molecules into dynamic organized structures. These materials are central to developing new materials for emerging technologies related to energy storage and production, energy-saving light-weight devices, and in the development of diverse new forms of medicine and medical materials that mimic biological processes.

The realization of the promise of this large class of new materials has been limited by the inherent difficulties in understanding and controlling properties and the structural stability of these inherently complex materials. The amorphous, and often hierarchical, structure of these materials make the effective modeling of these materials a challenge.

With support from the NIST grant, Starr and his peers will investigate ways to overcome these challenges and develop these materials for their many intended applications.