Conference: Convergence Accelerator Workshop: Bio-inspired Design

自达·芬奇时代以来，生物一直是建筑和工程的灵感来源。活细胞、组织、器官和生物体的能力远远超过人类制造的机器或结构，包括自我组装、繁殖、愈合伤口、容忍错误和集体合作的能力。通过学习如何向工程系统提供这些能力，将创建新的工程领域，有可能为社会面临的一些最紧迫的问题提供新的解决方案。可以利用生物灵感设计解决的应用例子包括气候友好型制造、生物能源生产、人造食品、医疗应用的新材料，以及在土木工程中快速建造大型弹性结构的新方法。与此同时，设计生物灵感材料、设备和制造方法的努力将提供一个新的机会，来发现生命组织的基本原则。已经在研究并即将对社会有用的生物启发设计解决方案的一些例子包括：由合成生物学实现的工业规模的、对气候友好的蛋白质、细胞和人造食品的制造；受生命系统启发的能量利用和存储的合成系统；用于建筑和土木工程的自主机器人群；用于伤口愈合和组织工程的与人体无缝交互的混合生物材料；模仿自然结构以增强强度、弹性和增强光学性能的纳米材料；以及用于纳米制造高密度多功能材料以及医疗应用的可编程分子机器人。然而，这些不同领域的研究人员很少相互互动，这个领域也没有任何全国性的研讨会或会议。 这是一个错失的机会，因为很明显，这些群体之间的融合互动可以推动创新。 PI提议在生物灵感设计的融合领域举办研讨会，将以前很少互动的研究人员聚集在一起，基于这样的想法，即专注于这一领域将推动对当今世界面临的重大问题的高影响力翻译解决方案。该研讨会的目标是讨论几种不同的生物灵感方法如何实现所需的功能，确定使用生物灵感设计原则最接近的最高价值的关键挑战，确定目前阻碍生物灵感设计想法付诸实践的障碍，并确定和传播实现翻译成果的最佳实践，如剥离初创公司、制定许可协议和促进商业产品的分销。拟议中的研讨会将汇集与生物灵感设计相关的不同领域的专家，从机器人和纳米技术到细胞和生物生物学，目标是确定即将进入现实世界应用的新兴研究领域。这些专家将在哈佛大学的怀斯生物启发工程研究所亲自会面，在那里他们将努力完成一个想法产生和改进的过程，最终目标是为生物启发设计制定路线图，然后作为为新项目征集资金申请的基础。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Since the days of Leonardo da Vinci, living things have served as the inspiration for architecture and engineering. Living cells, tissues, organs, and organisms have abilities that far exceed those of human-made machines or structures, including the ability to self-assemble, reproduce, heal wounds, tolerate errors, and work together as collectives. By learning how to provide these capabilities to engineered systems, new areas of engineering will be created with the potential to provide new solutions to some of the most pressing problems faced by society. Examples of applications that could be addressed using bio-inspired design include climate-friendly manufacturing, bioenergy production, artificial foods, novel materials for medical applications, and new ways to rapidly build large resilient structures in civil engineering. At the same time, the effort to engineer bioinspired materials, devices, and manufacturing approaches will provide a new opportunity to discover the fundamental principles by which life is organized. Some examples of bio-inspired design solutions that are already being investigated and on the cusp of being useful to society include: industrial-scale, climate-friendly manufacturing of proteins, cells, and artificial foods enabled by synthetic biology; synthetic systems for energy harnessing and storage inspired by living systems; autonomous robot swarms for construction and civil engineering; hybrid biomaterials that interact seamlessly with the human body for wound healing and tissue engineering; nanomaterials that mimic natural structures for enhanced strength, resilience, and enhanced optical properties; and programmable molecular robots for nanofabrication of high density multifunctional materials as well as medical applications. However, researchers in these disparate areas rarely interact with one another, and there have not been any national-scale workshops or conferences in this space.  This is a missed opportunity, as it is clear that convergent interactions between these groups could drive innovation.  The PIs propose a workshop in the convergent area of Bio-inspired Design to bring together researchers that have rarely interacted previously, based on the idea that focused attention in this space will drive forward high-impact translational solutions to major problems that the world faces today. The vision of this workshop is to discuss how several distinct bio-inspired approaches achieve a desired functionality, identify the highest value key challenges that are most approachable using bio-inspired design principles, identify hurdles that are currently preventing bio-inspired design ideas from being practicable, and identify and disseminate best practices for achieving translational outcomes such as spinning off start-up companies, developing licensing agreements, and enabling distribution of commercial products. The proposed workshop will bring together experts in different areas related to bio-inspired design, ranging from robotics and nanotechnology to cell and organismal biology, with the goal of identifying emerging areas of research that are poised to take the next step into real world application. These experts will meet in person at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, where they will work through a process of idea generation and refinement with the ultimate goal of putting together a roadmap for bio-inspired design that will then serve as the basis for soliciting funding applications for new projects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.