Emerging Materials and Nanotechnology

The ability to use machines to manipulate matter a single molecule at a time renders many things possible that were impossible before. Living systems do this on a regular basis. The core challenge to accessing life function is transforming the labile molecules that exist in a fragile living organism into a stable engineered system that is economically scalable. The most significant difficulties revolve around environmental stability and the inherent structural limitations of these molecules. The solution to these difficulties is at hand.

 

Presented is the generic solution methodology used to solve these limiting challenges to produce a new class of materials and devices. By introducing “metabolism” into engineered devices and materials, solutions to grand societal challenges in Medicine, Environment, and Agriculture now appear to be attainable. Furthermore this new technology does not rely on $100’s of millions of infrastructure making it globally assessable to developing nations. It offers a global promise of economic opportunity and prosperity.

 

Exemplars of the application of this new technology will be shown. We will elucidate the design, engineering and assembly of a complex closed system that uses a highly modified photosynthetic process to transform carbon waste into valuable drop-in specialty chemicals.  Enabled by the synthesis of a new class of printable “inks” that have stabilized active biological molecules as integrated elements of synthesized polymer constructs, we will present a technology that transitions additive manufacturing from 3D space to a four-dimensional, functional space creating a whole new class of materials and devices. The application of this technology to medicine, in particular the treatment of type 1 diabetes, glaucoma and other medical conditions will also be illustrated.