Director's Message:

Happy Spring! You may have noticed a new banner for the Molecular Engineering Industry Affiliates Newsletter created by the talented Marketing and Communications team led by my colleague Melissa Abraham. It looks good doesn't it?

This is one of our efforts at boosting the brand awareness of the PME - or more generally of engineering at a university not historically associated with engineering. Some strategic coordination led to a successful evening reception that leveraged the presence and participation of local companies as well as faculty attending the American Physical Society March meeting in Minneapolis in early March. With over 70 attendees, it was well received and will likely be repeated at other events in the future. We hope to see you at one these future events!

Speaking of future events (with more details below), here are a few to note:

• Deep Tech Ventures Corporate Collision - April 9th, 2024
• The Quantum Recruiting Forum takes place next week on April 11th (not in the John Crear Library as was mentioned before, but in Ida Noyes Hall.
• Deep Tech Ventures Summit - June 18th, 2024
• Industry Networks Day (IND) - "Sustainable Innovation Ecosystems" is scheduled for Thursday, Sept 12th, 2024 in Eckhardt Research Center. More details on the agenda in the summer newsletter in late June.
• The Science and Engineering Industry Expo (SEIE) - our premier PhD level STEM talent recruitment fair will take place on Sept 10-11, 2024. Sept 10th will be fully virtual, and Sept 11th will be fully in-person.
• The SEIE will end with a industry-judged poster session, and IND will start with that same poster session as a way to tap the populations of both events.

Finally - in the slew of interesting articles below, there are a few I'd like to highlight:

• Nicholas Boynton's article in Science (with Professors Stuart Rowan and Shrayesh Patel) on "Accessing pluripotent mateirals through tempering of dynamic covalent polymer networks" was mentioned in the NYT and Chemistry World.
• A $160M federal grant led by Professor Junhong Chen to purify water and use the contaminants to build clean energy batteries.
• Looking for collaborative industrial and research lab space near the University of Chicago? Hyde Park Labs is set to finish in Q4 2024.
• More powerful chips generate more heat - which is a huge problem. How do we get around this problem? With new materials that are molecularly engineered to switch at lower voltages. Learn about the materials that do this using Redox gating.
• AI & Quantum are definitely on the horizon. It is just a matter of "when". But its been difficult to talk about with concrete steps forward. Here is something we can talk about! - See the article in Nature Communications.

“Pluripotent” plastic: from one starting polymer, many materials

A material developed by Prof. Stuart Rowan can turn into plastics that range from stretchy and bendy to stiff and rigid. This versatility may be useful for engineers working in resource-scarce environments like outer space.

Drifting at sea, isolated on a space station, or stuck in a war zone, engineers trying to build new things or patch together a repair are often constrained by the materials they have at hand. But what if they had one single polymer that they could coax into anything from a rubber band-like material or a ball of silly putty to a flexible sheet of plastic or a stiff, molded device?

Researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have now developed such a material, which they call a “pluripotent plastic.” Like pluripotent stem cells which can give rise to any type of adult cell in the human body, their plastic, described in the journal Science, can take on many final forms.

“We believe, this is the first example of a synthetic material that exhibits pluripotent behavior,” said Stuart Rowan, the Barry L. MacLean Professor for Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise at PME and senior author of the new work. “We believe that it paves the way toward a different way of thinking about material design.”

PME Dean Nadya Mason wins 2024 Robert Holland Jr. Award

Yearly award recognizes “Research Excellence and Contributions to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”

UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Dean Nadya Mason has been named one of four recipients of the 2024 Robert Holland Jr. Award. 

The award, now in its second year, is given by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement to tenured physical sciences teacher-scholars in the United States or Canada who “demonstrate a consistent record of and strong commitment to creativity, excellence in research and teaching, and mentorship guided toward diversity and inclusion.” 

“This is a wonderful personal honor, but it also recognizes the importance of the work we are doing at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago to encourage underrepresented groups to consider careers in engineering,” Mason said. “We are breaking down barriers through everything from networking and professional development opportunities to events that celebrate our students to simply reaching out to our neighbors on Chicago’s South Side.” 

“Every day, engineering at UChicago shows young people that engineers look like them,” Mason said. 

Mason joined PME as Dean in 2023, taking over from Founding Dean Matthew Tirrell, the D. Gale Johnson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus.

UChicago engineer driving key role in Great Lakes water transformation

Professor Junhong Chen at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering holds a leading role in unprecedented $160M federal climate award

The Chicago-based Great Lakes ReNEW coalition has been awarded one of the largest, if not the largest, climate awards in the city’s history – up to $160 million over 10 years as one of the inaugural U.S. National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines.  

Authorized in the “CHIPS and Science Act of 2022,” the NSF Engines program is designed to support the development of diverse regional coalitions of universities, local governments, the private sector and nonprofits to create solutions to today’s pressing issues. 

Selected from an initial pool of more than 700 submissions from across the nation, Great Lakes ReNEW was named one of the first cohort on Monday, Jan. 29.

If the award is large, the task is pharaonic: Recycle the used water to create a clean water resource, use the contaminants to build clean energy batteries, and solve one of humanity’s biggest challenges.  

For Junhong Chen, Crown Family Professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and Lead Water Strategist at Argonne National Laboratory, the announcement is the culmination of years of effort – and the promise of years more important work ahead on a critical task. Chen is the co-Principal Investigator and Use-Inspired R&D Lead for Great Lakes ReNEW.  

A water-quality expert with decades of expertise in real-time water quality monitoring and detection, Chen provided the scientific vision for the project.

UChicago/Argonne and PME technological strengths

Environment fate of materials and sustainability

Sensing technology and sustainability

Polymer circularity

Resource recovery

Critical material supply chain

Green batteries

Critical materials life cycle analysis

AI/Machine Learning applied to sustainability

Carbon capture

Solar Technology

New Tumor Mapping Tech Shows Potential to Make ‘Major Impact’ on Cancer Research

Nicolas Chevrier, assistant professor of molecular engineering at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, recently received the Duckworth Family Commercial Promise Award for his proposal, Spatiomolecular mapping of the tumor microenvironment.

The proposal was selected from a competitive pool of proposals and judged by a team from the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC) and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, as well as external experts. The review criteria included commercialization potential, investigators, innovation, scientific merit, as well as feasibility of milestones and future plans.

“Dr. Chevrier’s proposal for a spatial profiling platform demonstrated potential to make a major impact on basic and clinical cancer research. It will enable the analysis of the tumor microenvironment to yield new biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis, candidate therapeutic targets, and fundamental insights about cancer biology,” said Kunle Odunsi, director of UChicago Medicine’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, dean for oncology, and the AbbVie Foundation Distinguished Service Professor.

A student-developed class builds community among UChicago engineering undergrads

Collaborative Learning in Molecular Engineering helps students grapple with coursework and life in a top-tier global engineering program

When UChicago engineering undergrads Akash Bindal and Zubin Kumar prep their regular room at the William Eckhardt Research Center every Sunday morning, the first thing they do is rearrange the chairs. 

They move them into small clusters turned inward to facilitate more personal group conversation and collaboration. This is just one of the many deliberate ways the student-run, student-created Collaborative Learning in Molecular Engineering (CLIME) course engineers an environment in which molecular engineering undergraduates learn and grow together. 

CLIME is an optional, zero-credit course for molecular engineering undergraduates to workshop tough topics, talk out problems they’re having trouble with and generally navigate life and lab at a top-tier global engineering program. Participants meet up to learn from undergraduate mentors who are ahead of them in their studies and university experiences.

University, government, and industry researchers join forces to explore how quantum computing could aid financial institutions

In a paper published in Nature Reviews Physics, a team of experts in academia, industry, and government has created a one-stop resource on the use of quantum computers to accelerate solutions for the finance sector. The paper discusses challenges in three categories at the intersection of finance and computing: optimization, machine learning, and stochastic modeling.

The team comprises scientists at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, JPMorgan Chase, Fujitsu Research of America, Menten AI, the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, and the University of Delaware. The research was facilitated by the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE), an intellectual hub that brings together academia, government, and industry to advance quantum research, train the future quantum workforce, and drive the quantum economy. Argonne and UChicago are founding members of the CQE, which is also anchored by DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Wisconsin­–Madison, and Northwestern University. JPMorgan Chase is a CQE corporate partner.

Translating the structure of plastics to the language of computers

Polymers — the long repetitive molecules that make up materials like plastic, silicon, nylon, and rubber — are notoriously difficult to model on computers. A single polymer molecule can contain thousands of atoms that take on a variety of structures even within one cohesive material. Being able to model these structures, however, could give researchers a better way to develop new polymeric materials and predict their properties.

Now, researchers at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago have created a tool that lets them represent collections of long, complex polymers in representations that can be easily processed by computers and artificial intelligence programs.

“This is an exciting step toward being able to streamline the process of new polymer development,” said Juan de Pablo, Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering and senior author of the new work, published in Digital Discovery. “If we want to solve some of the biggest engineering challenges in the world today, we need to be able to design new polymers more quickly.”

The tool, called Generative Big Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry System, or G-BigSMILES, is openly available to the research community.

Industry, academia come together in new PME Networking Night

A new PME Industry Networking Night that debuted at the American Physical Society’s most recent conference created the connections that will spur tomorrow’s groundbreaking innovations. The networking event brought PME faculty, PhD students and postdocs together with more than 30 industry figures representing 17 companies.

PME faculty have long been involved with additional events at the APS convention, including the Chicago Quantum Exchange’s Quantum Open House and the public debut of the STAGE Lab’s Quantum Casino. This marks a new event that planners hope to make a yearly mainstay.

“As a fast-growing engineering school, our industrial partners are key to many of our future strategic plans,” said Director of Career Development Briana Konnick, who organized the event with Assistant Director of Employer Engagement Xiao Yun Sim and Director of Corporate Engagement Felix Lu. “Our goal was to capitalize on both the industrial and academic audiences attending this year’s APS March Meeting to drive connections and develop longer-term relationships towards talent recruitment, potential research collaborations and technology-focused conversations.”

Finding a better path to lithium

PME Asst. Prof. Chong Liu looks for novel, environmentally friendly solutions to power the world

Extracting lithium from Australian mines, Chilean brine pools or clay deposits underneath Nevada, can be a painfully slow, expensive and environmentally damaging process. But batteries powering everything from smartphones to energy storage for wind farms and solar fields demand the metallic element.

UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Asst. Prof. Chong Liu is developing better ways to not only supply high quantities of lithium, but to do so in an environmentally friendly way.

By researching the physical and chemical processes at solid-liquid interfaces for sustainable separation, Liu has created new ways to separate dilute ions from the water. This could be used to pull lithium, rare earth elements and other scarce materials directly from water – no mining or brine evaporation needed.

Water And Energy Are Intertwined: Here’s How We Can Start Treating Them That Way

As a researcher and leader at a Department of Energy national laboratory, I spend a lot of time thinking about water. “Why?” you may ask. The intricate interplay between these two critical domains is often underestimated and misunderstood, with many industries treating them as wholly separate entities. As we move forward into a world where resource scarcity and sustainability are paramount concerns, a holistic perspective is essential.

The Water-Energy Nexus: A Complex Interrelationship

The water-energy nexus is a concept that recognizes the inextricable link between water and energy resources. This interdependence manifests in many ways. Thermoelectric power plants require vast amounts of water for cooling—so much so that these facilities are typically sited next to rivers or lakes. Conversely, water sourcing, treatment and distribution systems are big energy consumers, accounting for more than 12% of the national total, by one estimate.

Revealed: HIV's Trick For Invading The Nucleus of a Host's Cell

Scientists have made an important discovery in understanding how the Human Immunodeficiency Virus – better known as HIV – breaks into the nucleus of a cell, enabling it to replicate and spread.

This process has been something of a mystery until now, and the research team from the University of Chicago says that their findings will help in understanding HIV and its impact on the body. Ultimately, it could lead to better treatments.

To find out exactly how HIV invades a cell nucleus, simulations featuring thousands of proteins were run, looking at the HIV capsid (the capsule containing the virus material) and the cell's nuclear pore complex; the mailbox-slot through which genetic information is sent and delivered.

"The pore complex is an incredible piece of machinery," says theoretical chemist Gregory Voth from the University of Chicago. "It can't let just anything into the nucleus of your cell, or you'd be in real trouble, but it's got to let quite a bit of stuff in. Somehow, the HIV capsid has figured out how to sneak in."

Optimizing Membrane Performance Using Ultrathin Coatings

Argonne National Laboratory has adapted a technique called atomic layer deposition to improve existing polymer membrane technology for separations and filtration.

Separations are the largest source of U.S. industrial emissions and consume 10%-15% of the world’s energy. Porous polymer membranes are low-cost, energy-efficient materials for separations and are used extensively in water treatment and purification. Membrane performance is determined in large part by the surface properties, especially along the pore walls.

Commercial membranes are typically hydrophobic, making them prone to fouling – a failure mode where the pores become clogged with organic/bio materials. For water treatment and industrial separation facility operators, fouling is a vexing problem and necessitates costly replacement or cleaning of that increases operating expenses.

Most existing solutions to address membrane fouling entail replacing existing polymers with new materials, requiring significant changes to the manufacturing process. An alternative strategy is to coat the inner surfaces of existing polymer membranes with fouling-resistant materials. However, most coating methods produce non-uniform coatings, especially within the micron-scale pores, leading to blockage and reduced permeance.

To address the problems of typical coating methods, scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have adapted a technique commonly found in semiconductor microelectronics manufacturing called atomic layer deposition (ALD). Using ALD, we coat polymer nanofiltration and ultrafiltration membranes with extremely uniform, ultrathin coatings (~1 nm) of metal-oxide ceramic materials, such as alumina and silica. These metal oxides are naturally hydrophilic but bond weakly with organic contaminants in water.

UChicago immunoengineering researchers decode the “cytokine storm” in sepsis

Sepsis — when an infection causes the immune system to improperly target the body — is one of the leading causes of death in the ICU.

While many studies have examined the dynamics that lead to sepsis, the molecules of the immune system that are thought to produce significant damage to the body — cytokines — have not been fully understood. These proteins help control inflammation, but when the immune system responds more aggressively than it should, it can release a “cytokine storm” on all tissues, causing tissue injury, organ failure, and death.

To better understand sepsis and the role of cytokines, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) researchers measured gene expression across tissues and organs affected by sepsis in a mouse model. They then measured how those same tissues were affected by pairs of cytokines. This work was led by Michihiro Takahama, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Chevrier lab who is now an Assistant Professor at Osaka University in Japan.

Surprisingly, they found that three cytokine pairs were responsible for most of the body’s damaging response to sepsis.

“We created the first organism-wide map of the effect of sepsis which uncovered a hierarchy within the cytokine storm,” said Asst. Prof. Nicolas Chevrier, co-author of the research. “And despite the chaotic nature of the storm, the rule that can explain this chaos turned out to be much simpler than we thought.”

The results, which could ultimately lead to new therapies for the condition, were published in Nature Immunology.

Manish Singh pushes the boundaries of quantum network development

Manish Singh, PhD’22, was one of the first students in the country to receive a doctoral degree in quantum engineering. He currently pushes the boundaries of quantum network development through his startup memQ.

But the quantum world was not top of mind when he first visited the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago in 2016.

“I saw myself primarily as a chemical engineer, so I wasn't sure exactly what role I could play,” Singh said.

Singh’s path from chemical to quantum engineering, from the private sector to research to entrepreneurship, from India to Taiwan to Chicago has been a journey. But the conversations he had with PME faculty on that visit in 2016 changed the trajectory of his career and his life.

Scientists use novel technique to create new energy-efficient microelectronic device

Argonne researchers pioneer ​“redox gating” — a new way to precisely modulate electron flow

As the integrated circuits that power our electronic devices get more powerful, they are also getting smaller. This trend of microelectronics has only accelerated in recent years as scientists try to fit increasingly more semiconducting components on a chip.

Microelectronics face a key challenge because of their small size. To avoid overheating, microelectronics need to consume only a fraction of the electricity of conventional electronics while still operating at peak performance.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have achieved a breakthrough that could allow for a new kind of microelectronic material to do just that. In a new study published in Advanced Materials, the Argonne team proposed a new kind of ​“redox gating” technique that can control the movement of electrons in and out of a semiconducting material.

Graduate student inspires next-generation scientists and engineers

PME graduate student Adarsh Suresh finds a passion for mentoring and education

Growing up in Bangalore, India, Adarsh Suresh was encouraged by his scientist father to go out, explore, and, most importantly: ask questions.

In neighboring forests, a teenage Suresh found his passion for science — well, at least for studying one class of organisms.

“Like everyone, I went through an insect phase,” he said. Not content to examine the six-legged creatures on his own, he reached out to an entomology professor at the National Center for Biological Sciences whose website said that he accepted high school students. The professor agreed to take in Suresh, assigning him to go into the forest, gather insects, and identify them. Soon enough, Suresh had graduated to bigger projects, including training bees to fly to the lab.

“I said, ‘This is really great. I really enjoy doing research,’” he said. “I was treated like an adult, and I felt relevant and important. And that’s when I really learned how to ask questions, how to break them down into digestible chunks.”

“To communicate science and educate students, you need to make them feel relevant and important.”

-- PhD student Adarsh Suresh

Gagliardi Group helps to unravel the mysteries of copper-catalyzed nitrogen coupling

In a recent study published in collaboration between UChicago and UW Madison, researchers have uncovered new insights into how nitrogen centers couple together under copper catalysis. Their work challenges conventional wisdom and opens new avenues in the field of chemical reactivity. 

The study, published in the Journal of American Chemical Society, began when experimental researchers at the University of Wisconsin Madison sought the collaboration of The Gagliardi Group to help evaluate and validate a proposal regarding coupling reactions. 

“They had done this reaction with copper in their lab and had a mechanistic proposal for how that worked and wanted us to evaluate that proposal with theoretical techniques,” says Daniel King, a UChicago graduate student and first author of the study.

Spinning, magnetic micro-robots help researchers probe immune cell recognition

Researchers at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago have engineered tiny, spinning micro-robots that bind to immune cells to probe their function. The robot, or “hexapod,” gives scientists a new, highly adaptable way to study immune cells and to aid in the design of immunotherapies against cancer, infection, or autoimmune diseases.

Each hexapod robot has six arms containing molecules that might be recognized as foreign by the immune system — such as protein fragments from a tumor, virus, or bacterium. Researchers can use the hexapods to scan large collections of immune cells and discover which immune cells bind the foreign molecules of interest and how the hexapods’ movements impact that binding.

“Numerous aspects of which immune cells and how immune molecules sense pathogens remain uncharted territory, and now we have this new tool to help us understand the molecular interactions,” said Jun Huang, associate professor of molecular engineering at Pritzker Molecular Engineering and co-senior author of the new paper, published in Nature Methods.

New research unites quantum engineering and artificial intelligence

Large-scale machine learning is already tackling some of humanity’s greatest challenges, including creating more effective vaccines and cancer immunotherapies, building artificial proteins and locating new companion materials for biocompatible electronics.

But two words have never been applied to this groundbreaking technology: Cheap or sustainable.

An interdisciplinary team including Prof. Liang Jiang and CQE IBM postdoctoral scholar Junyu Liu from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, UChicago graduate students Minzhao Liu and Ziyu Ye, Argonne computational scientist Yuri Alexeev, and researchers from UC Berkeley, MIT, Brandeis University and Freie Universität Berlin hope to change that.

In a paper published this month in Nature Communications, the team showed how incorporating quantum computing into the classical machine-learning process can potentially help make machine learning more sustainable and efficient.

Construction tops out at Hyde Park Labs

The life sciences building will deliver in Q4 2024

Trammell Crow Company and Beacon Capital Partners have announced that construction has topped out at Hyde Park Labs in Chicago. The South Side’s first commercial, purpose-built advanced R&D lab, Hyde Park Labs is in the diverse and vibrant neighborhood of Hyde Park, located at 5207 S. Harper. The building is expected to welcome its first tenants in early 2025, after the delivery of the base building in Q4 2024. The University of Chicago has already pre-leased approximately 55,000 square feet at the building, which will house a half-floor incubator space to support early-stage science research.

“Hyde Park Labs is situated at the epicenter of the Hyde Park downtown neighborhood, where there has been tremendous innovation driven in large part by the transformative deep tech, medical and quantum research and entrepreneurship led by the University of Chicago,” said TCC’s Morgan Baer-Blaska. “The proximity and partnership with this world-class institution allows us to further support a science ecosystem that is already growing rapidly in this market.

Deep Tech Ventures Summit: Deep Tech Innovation x Investment

Tuesday, June 18 | 8:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Gleacher Center

The Deep Tech Ventures Summit is the signature event at the convergence of deep tech innovation and investment in the Midwest spurring collaboration between founders, investors, industry experts, and other partners interested in supporting Chicago’s deep tech ecosystem. This full-day event consists of educational programming including keynotes and breakout discussions followed by pitches from 20+ cutting-edge startups across quantum, data science & AI, cleantech and life sciences, and multiple networking and collaboration opportunities. Join to explore new investment opportunities, learn how deep tech is reshaping industries on a global scale, and engage with a diverse community of tech leaders.

Deep Tech Ventures Corporate Collision provides a unique opportunity for companies to discover, connect and collaborate with some of the nation’s top quantum, data science & AI, and cleantech startups. A panel of experts will discuss how to create equitable structures that incentivize collaboration between corporates and startups for sustained innovation. Participants will then have an opportunity to hear from the startups from Duality, Transform, and Resurgence as well as other participating corporates sharing more about the innovation needs & challenges followed by a networking reception and opportunities for meetings with startups of interest.

Does your technical management want an executive understanding of Quantum Engineering and how it may benefit your company?

Plastic-eating bacteria turn waste into useful starting materials for other products

Mountains of used plastic bottles get thrown away every day, but microbes could potentially tackle this problem. Now, researchers in ACS Central Science report that they’ve developed a plastic-eating E. coli that can efficiently turn polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste into adipic acid, which is used to make nylon materials, drugs and fragrances.

Previously, a team of researchers including Stephen Wallace engineered a strain of E. coli to transform the main component in old PET bottles, terephthalic acid, into something tastier and more valuable: the vanilla flavor compound vanillin. At the same time, other researchers engineered microbes to metabolize terephthalic acid into a variety of small molecules, including short acids. So, Wallace and a new team from the University of Edinburgh wanted to expand E. coli’s biosynthetic pathways to include the metabolism of terephthalic acid into adipic acid, a feedstock for many everyday products that’s typically generated from fossil fuels using energy-intensive processes.

South Works site, Lockport refinery eyed for potential quantum computer factory

Two massive industrial sites that symbolize Chicago’s manufacturing decline — a former steel mill on the South Side and a former refinery in the southwest suburbs — could get new life in the race to build cutting-edge technology.

PsiQuantum is considering the former U.S. Steel South Works site and the former Texaco refinery in Lockport for a facility to build and operate quantum computers, which could result in more than 1,000 jobs, sources familiar with the project tell Crain’s. A decision could come in the next six weeks.

PsiQuantum, based in Palo Alto, Calif., is among a handful of companies building quantum computers, which are radically different than existing technology. It’s looking for a site that would be home to a cryogenic facility that could consistently create temperatures near absolute zero, which is required to operate the computers. The project would result in 250 to 1,000 jobs to start and eventually grow well beyond that, said a source familiar with the plans.

Remote collaborators don't generate as many breakthrough scientific ideas: study

Teams of scientists that collaborate remotely are less likely to generate disruptive ideas, a new study suggests.

Why it matters: The finding lands as debates about the benefits and drawbacks of remote work roil workplaces and some studies suggest there is a slowdown in discoveries that push science in new, fruitful directions.

What they did: Analyzing 20 million scientific research articles and 4 million patent applications spanning the last half century, the researchers first described the increase in remote collaborations between scientists around the world during that time.

• They defined teams as "on-site" if the authors of a paper or patent were in the same city. When a team had an author from another city, it was considered a remote collaboration.
• A paper was deemed to be disruptive based on how it was cited: If a subsequent scientific paper cites the original paper and the references in it, it is seen as incremental work. If a paper cites the original patent or paper but doesn't include the references in it, that suggests the original work was disruptive because it eclipsed the old ones referenced, the researchers reported in the journal Nature.

The Cost of Freeing Drinking Water from ‘Forever Chemicals’

The EPA is set to limit PFAS in drinking water to barely detectable levels. Can water utilities meet the standard?

Situated in a former sand and gravel pit just a few hundred feet from the Kennebec River in central Maine, the Riverside Station pumps half a million gallons of fresh groundwater every day. The well station processes water from two of five wells on either side of the river operated by the Greater Augusta Utility District, or GAUD, which supplies drinking water to nearly 6,000 local households. Most of them reside in Maine’s state capital, Augusta, just a few miles to the south. Ordinarily, GAUD prides itself on the quality of its water supply. “You could drink it out of the ground and be perfectly safe,” said Brian Tarbuck, GAUD’s general manager.

But in March 2021, environmental sampling of Riverside well water revealed trace levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or “forever chemicals,” as they’re better known. The levels at Riverside didn’t exceed Maine’s drinking water standard of 20 parts per trillion (ppt), which was a relief, Tarbuck said. Still, he and his colleagues at the utility were wary. PFAS have been linked to a variety of health problems, and Maine lawmakers at the time were debating an even stricter limit for the chemicals. Tarbuck knew a lower standard was coming someday. The only question was when.

Fascia: The long-overlooked tissue that shapes your health

The connective tissue that surrounds your muscles and organs, known as fascia, has always been ignored – but new insights suggest it holds the key to tackling chronic pain and immune dysfunction

SCIENTIFIC revelations come from the unlikeliest of places. Like a rat, in a lab, doing a “downward dog” stretch.

According to the people who found a way to get rats to do yoga, these creatures benefit from a good stretch as much as we do. In the process, they are revealing the true significance of a body tissue that has been overlooked by science for centuries.

The 19th-century anatomist Erasmus Wilson called this tissue – now known as fascia – a natural bandage. In dissection, that is exactly what it looks like: sheets of white, fibrous connective tissue that are strong yet flexible and perfect for keeping muscles and organs in place. They are also sticky, gloopy and get in the way of looking at the muscles, bones and organs they cover. Which explains why, for years, anatomists cut this tissue off, chucked it away and thought little more about it.

Recently, though, researchers have begun to take a fresh look at fascia and are finding that it is anything but an inert wrapping. Instead, it is the site of biological activity that explains some of the links between lifestyle and health. It may even be a new type of sensory organ. “There appears to be more going on in the fascia than is commonly appreciated,” says Karl Lewis at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

This ancient material is displacing plastics and creating a billion-dollar industry

CORUCHE, Portugal — The rhythmic noise of axes whacking trees echoes in the depths of the cork oak forest.

But in Coruche, a rural area south of the Tagus River known as Portugal’s “cork capital,” the bang of trees falling to the ground doesn’t follow the sound of the ax strokes. Instead, experienced workers carefully peel away the bark from the tree trunks.

This annual rite of extracting cork in the summer months has been around for thousands of years in the western Mediterranean. Egyptians, Persians, Greeks and Romans used the material to make fishing gear and sandals and to seal jugs, jars and barrels. As glass bottles gained popularity in the 18th century, cork became the preferred sealant because it is durable, waterproof, light and pliable.

Now cork is experiencing a revival as more industries look for sustainable alternatives to plastic and other materials derived from fossil fuels. The bark is now used for flooring and furniture, to make shoes and clothes, and as insulation in homes and electric cars. Portugal’s exports reached an all-time high of 670 million euros ($728 million) in the first half of 2023.

But cork is more than a trendy green material. In addition to creating jobs, the forests where it grows provide food and shelter for animals, all while sequestering carbon dioxide. And unlike most trees grown commercially, cork oaks are never cut down, meaning their carbon storage capacity continues through the 200 years or more they live.

Preservatives used in food have unexpected effects on gut microbiome: Study

Common food preservatives, known as lantibiotics, have been found to have unexpected effects on the gut microbiome, threatening the healthy balance. Researchers discovered that these preservatives, suchg as nisin, not only kill pathogens but also commensal gut bacteria. This study highlights the potential of lantibiotics on gut health.

Sugary handshakes are how cells talk to each other − understanding these name tags can clarify how the immune system works

Like the people they make up, cells communicate by bumping into one another and exchanging handshakes. Unlike people, cells perform these handshakes using the diverse range of sugar molecules coating their surface like trees covering a landscape. Handshakes between these sugar molecules, or glycans, trigger cells to react in specific ways toward each other, such as escape, ignore or destroy.

Figuring out the “body language” of glycans during these handshakes can provide clues to how cancers, infections and immune systems work, as well as solutions to health and sustainability challenges society faces today.

The Uncharted World of Emerging Pathogens

It all started when Christopher Mason’s 3-year-old daughter licked a subway pole.

Like any parent, he was horrified, but also keenly curious: What types of microbes might be clinging to a metal pipe gripped by countless commuters every day?

Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medicine, soon became obsessed with that question. His toddler’s gross interlude inspired him to embark on a journey to unveil the world of bacteria, fungi, and viruses co-mingling with more than 8 million people in New York City’s urban jungle.

In 2013, he launched a project that began dispatching a small army of students shouldering backpacks crammed with latex gloves, vials, and sterile Q-tips. They sampled turnstiles, benches, and kiosks at every open metro stop in the city. It was an expedition into a largely unexplored terrain, like Mars or a deep-sea canyon, brimming with lifeforms both familiar and unknown.

A variety of new batteries are coming to power EVs

All use different chemistries for cost or performance

The tall grey buildings covering an industrial complex at Nysa, in south-west Poland, look like a modern car factory has been teleported into the surrounding farmland. The plant, though, does not make cars, but it is a new and vital part of the automotive supply chain for electric vehicles (EVs). These rely on batteries containing materials that can be expensive, hard to come by and are mostly processed in China. The plant at Nysa is the first to produce those materials at scale in Europe.

The lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries that power most EVs are their single most-expensive component, typically representing some 40% of the price of the vehicle when new. The materials these batteries are made from define its performance, hence they help determine how far an EV can travel on a single charge, how fast it can go and how long its battery will last. In turn, the most critical component in those batteries are its cathodes, accounting for around half their value. The Nysa plant makes cathode materials, which puts it at the heart of a battery revolution.

Carbon-negative decking could lock up CO2 equivalent to taking 50,000 cars off the road

One of the first composite materials whose production actually cuts carbon dioxide emissions over its life cycle has been created by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), US. The work was presented at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society on 17 March.

Microplastics passed on during cell division

Micro- and nanoplastics taken up by gastric cancer cells are passed on during cell division, according to new research by researchers in Austria and Germany. Particles around 0.25μm in size also increased the rate of migration in these cells and are thought to have pro-metastatic effects.

‘It was very surprising that cells are not only taking up plastics, but these also stay there after cell division,’ said Lukas Kenner, a pathologist from the Medical University of Vienna who co-led the project.

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Different ways to explore interactions with the PME:

• Senior capstone design projects
• Internships (undergraduate and graduate students)
• Materials characterization/device fabrication facilities
• Participation in industry seminars, Industry Networks Day, Visitation days, etc.
• Give an industry seminar on your job/company/career path!
• Licensing opportunities (I'll connect you with the Polsky center)
• Do you want to do more computational/AI work in your product R&D?
• Ask Felix!

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