Adapting and Evolving Materials

What is the group doing?The group wants to build a materials system that works by adapting to the work requirement, or better yet that evolves to optimize its performance. We want to subject the systems to energy sources and engineer how materials adapt to the influx of energy; thus, evolving by adaptation. For example, we can think of libraries of peptides that can adapt in the presence of different environmental cues, in presence of an energy supply such as ATP. Or we can observe the synthetic protocells that will be able to pass the Turing test and act as translators between different living species.What is new in your approach?We will focus on controlling constraints (kinetics, time scales, length scales), which we see as memory, either short-term or long-term, depending on process kinetics. In particular, we will try to understand the energy flow and how information content affects behavior.How is it done today? If you are successful, what difference will it make?Currently, adaptation is mostly limited to synthetic biology, or in silico systems. Essentially, it is never from scratch. If we succeed, everyone in functional materials will be engaged. We would unlock systems that can optimize themselves and can work together. For example, this would mean that a single material system would be able to optimize its performance towards four different tasks.Cost and timeline?We aim at a multidisciplinary consortium of 16 postdocs/grad. students/years encompassing synthetic chemists, physical chemists, algorithm development – including modelers – chemical engineers, material scientists, and biologists. It will take 4-5 years, with a good deal of luck.What are the midterm and final exams to check for completeness?Midterm: one out-of-equilibrium system that adapts to different tasks.Final: 1st generation materials that can evolve through adaptation to 2nd generation materials that give better performance.