Constraints and Frustration in Nano-Structured and Bio-Molecular Materials

布兰迪斯大学的材料研究科学与工程中心（MRSEC）支持材料科学与生物学之间的一个令人兴奋的学科的创新研究和教育。该中心的主要研究主题是发展对由于类似于生物系统中发生的限制而产生的材料的紧急特性的基本理解，并理解限制在细胞和细胞成分的结构和功能中的作用。这是一个跨学科的研究中心，由来自布兰代斯大学四个系的12名高级研究员组成，布朗大学和奥林工程学院各有一名高级研究员。MRSEC为学生提供物理，化学和生物学的多学科教育，这将有助于研究前沿的劳动力和新兴生物材料行业的需求。其他教育项目包括本科生的研究经历，以及通过教师培训进行的大学前拓展。MRSEC提供了一个针对布兰迪斯大学市中心少数族裔理科本科生的项目。该中心的科学家与马萨诸塞州阿克顿的发现博物馆合作，开发生物物理学和材料科学领域的互动展览。该中心为新兴的微流控领域的研究提供新颖的设施，并与工业界合作开发微流控技术。该中心的研究由一个单一的跨学科研究小组组成，主要有三个重点，即探索生物学中常见的约束因素（限制、拥挤和与长期秩序竞争、有时会阻碍长期秩序的局部力量）是如何导致结构和动力学领域的涌现特性的。研究的重点是长聚合物分子的结构和动力学，如DNA，在严格限制的体积；自组装的“手性”或扭曲分子，导致不寻常的结构；“活性物质”是由有组织的自供电粒子组成的，这些粒子在空间中移动或在时间中振荡。

The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Brandeis University supports innovative research and education in an exciting subject at the interface between materials science and biology. The major research theme of the Center is to develop fundamental understanding of emergent properties of materials due to constraints similar to those occurring in biological systems, and in understanding the role of constraints in the structure and function of cells and cellular components. This is an interdisciplinary Center with twelve senior investigators from four departments at Brandeis University, and one each from Brown University and Olin College of Engineering. The MRSEC provides a multidisciplinary education for students in physics, chemistry and biology, that will contribute to the workforce at the research frontiers and to the needs of emerging biomaterials industries. Other educational programs include research experiences for undergraduates, and pre-college outreach through teacher training. The MRSEC offers a program targeted to inner-city minority science undergraduates at Brandeis. Scientists at the Center work with the Discovery Museums in Acton, MA, to develop interactive exhibits in the area of biological physics and materials science. The Center provides novel facilities for research in the emerging area of microfluidics and is collaborating with industry to develop microfluidics technologies. Research at the Center is organized as a single Interdisciplinary Research Group with three main thrusts that explore how the addition of constraints typically found in biology - confinement, crowding, and local forces that compete with and sometimes frustrate long range order - leads to emergent properties, in the realms of both structure and dynamics. The research thrusts are structure and dynamics of long polymer molecules, such as DNA, in tightly confined volumes; self-assembly of "chiral" or twisted molecules that lead to unusual structures; and "active matter" composed of organized assemblies of self-powered particles that move in space or oscillate in time.