BIOINSPIRED SOFT MATERIALS CENTER BLURS BOUNDARIES BETWEEN THE ANIMATE AND INANIMATE

Scientists at the Bio-inspired Soft Materials Center at Brandeis University are using fundamentally new approaches to study bioinspired soft materials, with the ultimate goal of developing new materials for artificial muscles, self-pumping fluids and self-healing materials. This center is among the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSECS) supported by the National Science Foundation. It provides a multidisciplinary education for students in physics, chemistry and biology that will contribute to the workforce at the research frontiers and to the needs of emerging biomaterials industries. MRSECs support interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary materials research and education of the highest quality while addressing fundamental problems in science and engineering that are important to society.