Fall 2007
In this Issue:
Focus On Biomaterials
Message from the Director
Welcome to our biomaterials issue of Focus on Materials. In this issue you will read about the many ways the materials and life sciences are working together to gather new understandings of the incredibly complex systems within our body, systems that have evolved over vast scales of time, space, and organization. The physical principles that govern these multi-scale phenomena are common to the life, computational, engineering, and social sciences and provide the bridge for solving global problems in healthcare.
In our feature story, the director and associate director of the new Center for Neural Engineering discuss the problems involved with understanding the complex systems of the brain, and how collaborations with Penn State researchers in electrical engineering and materials science will aid them in sensing and controlling diseases of the brain. Neuroscience is one of the fastest growing fields of research, offering the possibility that in the not too distant future we may find treatments for such malfunctions as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and major depression, among others.
In this issue you will also read about a nanoengineering method to combat blood clotting. These dangerous clots form on most materials when they come into contact with blood, and the drugs that inhibit clot formation can be both expensive and dangerous to some patients. Our surface chemists are using nanotexture to thwart the clot formation without the need for drugs. Other chemists at Penn State are finding new ways to investigate the intra-molecular interactions of living cells, and are using nanofabrication methods to mimic the molecular processes that create and control cell membranes.
Ultrasound technology was first developed for naval sonar, then for detecting defects in materials, and subsequently applied for the imaging of fetuses, hearts and other living organs; now, our bioengineering faculty are using ultrasound to treat diabetes and other chronic diseases.
Whether for healthcare, environmental remediation, food production, or national security, the ability to understand and integrate organic, biological, and inorganic systems is certain to advance our lives in many different ways. In this issue, we will explore just a few of the many ongoing biomaterials research projects underway at Penn State.
Sincerely,
Carlo Pantano
Director of the Materials Research Institute
and Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
To access the materials expertise at Penn State, please visit our Materials Research Institute web site at www.mri.psu.edu, or the Industrial Research Office web site at www.techtransfer.psu.edu/iro/.
