Nanobiology institute launched

By early next year, research scientists in Building B-24 on the West Campus may be working on nanomachines that function inside living cells, developing materials for tissue engineering, or creating DNA nanorobots to carry out programmed tasks.

In January university officials announced the creation of the Nanobiology Institute, where biologists, engineers, and researchers in other disciplines will explore the ways in which living and material systems operate at the nanoscale. James E. Rothman, Ph.D., the Fergus F. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Sciences and chair of the Department of Cell Biology, has been named director of the new institute. T. Kyle Vanderlick, Ph.D., dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, will serve as deputy director.

“Engineers design systems from first principles, and do so on ever-smaller scales,” said Rothman. “Biologists are reverse engineers, and seek to deduce the design that nature provides. There is a profound intersection between these oppositely oriented views that enriches both.”