Designing Biomimetic, Dissipative Material Systems

The conference will focus on the design, synthesis, and modeling of dissipative (active) material systems that perform life-like functions. Dissipation is the physical process associated with the irreversible transformation of energy from one form to another. The systems to be considered at this meeting are capable of transducing, storing, and/or harvesting energy and using that energy to self-assemble, perform work, or dynamically respond to changes in the environment. In this sense, the materials are active and adaptive. Through discussions at this conference, we will be attempting to formulate ways of inscribing the vital functions found in biological systems into synthetic materials, and thereby, potentially blurring the lines between living and non-living systems. The meeting will highlight attempts to establish new design rules for achieving specific biologically-inspired functions or behaviors. The emphasis will be not only on designing material systems (i.e., a composite formed from different constituents), but also on creating "systems of materials" that encompass different components interacting across many scales to achieve a function. Technological advances in this field will come from iterative interactions between experimentalists and theorists to correlate the components of the system (organelles, reaction cascades, DNA, etc.) to a function (metabolism, motion, etc.). The outcome of such a multi-disciplinary forum could be a systems-level framework that can enable researchers to create biomimetic materials that exhibit new, useful functionality.

The meeting will bring together materials scientists, physicists, engineers, biologists, chemists, and experts in computational modeling. This array of expertise is needed to address fundamental challenges at the core of this research area. Young researchers are especially welcome to present posters; please submit abstracts for posters a month before the meeting. We are attempting to secure funding to help defray the costs for speakers and poster presenters.