RIT part of collaborative NSF project to program biological cells to design futuristic materials
RIT Associate Professor Moumita Das heads modeling and theory contributions to the project
Rochester Institute of Technology Associate Professor Moumita Das is part of a team of researchers that was recently awarded a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to design and create next-generation materials inspired and empowered by biological cells.
The team’s goal is to create self-directed, programmable, and reconfigurable materials—using biological building blocks including proteins and cells—that are capable of producing force and motion. This research could pave the way for future materials applications ranging from self-healing bridges and self-propulsive materials to programmable micro-robotics, wound healing and dynamic prosthetics.