Acquisition of Particle Tracking Instrumentation for Soft Matter and Biomaterials Research and Education

该补助金为约翰霍普金斯大学软物质和生物材料研究和教育的粒子跟踪仪器的购置提供支持。 在粒子跟踪中，胶体悬浮在复杂的流体中，并测量和分析它们的运动。对这种运动的研究，可以导致热波动，与其他粒子或宿主流体的相互作用，或外部场的应用，提供了一个独特的探测复杂流体的基本性质，以及应用的重要途径。这种新仪器将使一个新的研究计划成为可能，重点是研究取向有序，对相互作用，并控制自组装的磁性纳米线在液晶。它们将使现有的软质玻璃状材料和蛋白质水凝胶的研究计划能够分支到新的方向，并将提供所需的新能力，以推进活细胞中细胞骨架的微观流变学研究。这些独特的仪器功能将通过方便的用户访问安排提供给约翰霍普金斯材料研究社区的实验者。粒子跟踪仪器也将成为约翰霍普金斯大学软物质和生物材料方面的学生培训、教育工作和外展计划的重要资源。粒子跟踪技术的强烈视觉特性使其非常适合将年轻科学家和潜在科学家引入材料研究。该仪器的具体教育计划之一是将其纳入针对高年级本科生和初级研究生的复杂流体新跨学科实验室课程。

This grant provides support for the acquisition of particle tracking instrumentation for soft matter and biomaterials research and education at Johns Hopkins University. In particle tracking, colloids are suspended in a complex fluid, and their motion is measured and analyzed. The study of this motion, which can result from thermal fluctuations, interactions with other particles or the host fluid, or the application of external fields, provides a unique probe of fundamental properties of complex fluids as well as an important avenue for applications. This new instrument will make possible a new research program focused on studies of orientational ordering, pair interactions, and controlled self-assembly of magnetic nanowires in nematic liquid crystals. They will enable existing programs on soft glassy materials and protein hydrogels to branch into new directions, and will provide needed new capabilities to advance studies of the microrheology of the cytoskeleton in living cells. These unique instrumental capabilities will be available to experimenters across the Johns Hopkins materials research community through a convenient user access arrangement. The particle-tracking instrument will also be an important resource for student training, educational efforts, and outreach programs in soft matter and biomaterials at Johns Hopkins. The strongly visual nature of particle tracking techniques makes them highly well suited for introducing young scientists and potential scientists to materials research. Among the specific educational plans for the instrument is its integration into the curriculum of a new interdisciplinary laboratory course on complex fluids targeted at upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students.