We all hate waiting for road maintenance to be completed; what if we didn’t have to wait?
Rae Robertson-Anderson, professor of physics and biophysics and associate provost for engaged scholarship at the University of San Diego, explores how this could be possible.
Robertson-Anderson is Associate Provost for Engaged Scholarship at University of San Diego, where she has been a Professor of Physics and Biophysics since 2009. Robertson-Anderson received her BS in Physics from Georgetown University in 2003, funded by a Clare Boothe Luce Scholarship. She earned her PhD in Physics from University of California, San Diego in 2007, funded by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, after which she was awarded an NIH fellowship to pursue a molecular biology postdoc at The Scripps Research Institute.
Robertson-Anderson joined the faculty at University of San Diego with the goal of engaging undergraduates in cutting-edge research and shaping undergraduate physics programs and research at a national level. She served as department Chair for eight years, overhauling the physics curriculum and research culture, and establishing an interdisciplinary Biophysics BS that has served as a model for liberal arts institutions nationally.
Robertson-Anderson’s research aims to elucidate the dynamics and mechanics of bio-inspired squishy and living materials. Her lab has pioneered novel optical tweezers microrheology and fluorescence microscopy techniques to probe these systems across decades of spatiotemporal scales. She is also a leading expert in engineering biopolymer networks that leverage biological design paradigms to solve problems in soft matter and active matter physics.
Robertson-Anderson has been awarded over $5M to fund her research program, including a Keck Foundation Research Grant, NSF DMREF Award, NSF CAREER Award, and Air Force Young Investigator Award.
At USD, Robertson-Anderson has been awarded a University Professorship, an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award, and a Glenn D. White, Jr. ’78 Faculty Research Award. At a national level, Robertson-Anderson was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, was awarded the APS Prize for Faculty Research at an Undergraduate Institution and the Research Corporation Cottrell Scholars STAR Award. Robertson-Anderson’s notable national service roles include serving on the Executive Committees for the APS Division of Soft Matter and the Beckman Young Investigator Program.
Learning From Biology to Design Self-Healing Infrastructure
Imagine a society where bridges and roads could repair themselves. Or, adaptable Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) could sense toxins in the air and morph to block or filter them. My research aims to learn from and use biological building blocks to engineer next-generation ‘living’ materials that can turn these daydreams into reality.
What do I mean by living?
Think muscles. They are made up of trillions of molecular motors that push and pull on the polymers that form our muscle tissue. Individually, each of these motors can’t generate enough force to move a grain of salt – but they are able to work collectively to allow bodybuilders to lift hundreds of pounds. I’m researching how to harness this exquisite action of molecular motors to create materials that can move, morph and contract.
Now think blood clotting. When we get a wound, there are large folded proteins in our blood that get unfolded by an enzyme – turning them into long strings with exposed patches. These patches cause the proteins to stick together to form a mesh-like network – like a piece of gauze – that can no longer flow like a fluid – this is how blood clots. When the wound has healed, another enzyme breaks the network of proteins apart. My team is incorporating enzymes into materials to give them similar self-healing properties.
For example – if there is a crack in a bridge. What if the molecules in the bridge at the edge of the crack could sense the crack and respond by fluidizing to fill it in. Once filled, an enzyme could be recruited to re-harden the squishy material. The bridge could heal itself. These materials are ‘living’ – morphing, doing work, and changing their properties – all without human intervention.
Read More:
www.biospotlab.com
www.livingbam.org
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Biopolymer Networks – IOP Book
