Transport and delivery by living materials
University of Pennsylvania
Abstract
One of the major challenges in robotics is controlling transport and micromanipulation by active and adaptive materials. Existing delivery technologies often suffer from limited navigation control, low speeds, and proneness to environmental disturbances. Biology often solves these problems by collectively organizing actuation at the microscale. For example, pathogens are removed from our lungs by an active carpet of cilia. Inside these cilia, in turn, microtubules form highways for molecular motors. In this talk, I will present developments in the microfabrication of “artificial cilia” and “artificial microtubules”. We designed amphibious cilia that can transport both liquids and dry objects. These carpets can sort particles by size and by shape using a crowd-surfing effect. We also designed magnetic microtubules, structured microfibers that rapidly guide particles through flow networks such as the cardiovascular system. These works offer unique strategies for robust microscale delivery, but equally shed light on non-equilibrium effects in biological transport processes.
About the speaker
Dr. Arnold Mathijssen was named ’30 under 30’ by Scientific American and was awarded the Sir Sam Edwards PhD Thesis Prize for his work in group of Julia Yeomans FRS at the University Oxford (2016). Supported by an HFSP cross-disciplinary fellowship, he moved to the lab of Manu Prakash at Stanford University, where the American Physical Society presented him the Charles Kittel Award (2019). He is now Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy at UPenn, and guest editor of the journal Physics of Fluids.
