Abstract

The emerging, interdisciplinary field of Bioinspired Materials focuses on developing a fundamental understanding of the synthesis, directed self-assembly, and hierarchical organization of naturally occurring materials, and uses this understanding to engineer new bioinspired artificial materials for diverse applications. In particular, recent advances in responsive materials and adaptive matter – that allow materials to sense and respond to diverse environments – suggest that it is a compelling time to bring together a diverse population of scientists and researchers to understand how to develop materials for sensing and response. Themes of this meeting will include a) Protocells – synthetic cells that have the structural organization of real cells, but are made of novel synthetic components and can be designed to respond - secrete or crawl – in response to stimuli, for biological or non-biological purposes; b) Adaptive Matter – to make materials from biological components or inspired by biological components that can adapt and respond mechanically or chemically to environmental conditions; c) Self-Assembly – biological molecules and their derivatives have the unique ability to assemble in ordered hierarchies, and make assemblies of novel topology, organization and function; d) Designer immunity – recent developments have seen the novel design of materials that are inspired to direct immune responses, to understand the fundamental tenets of cell communication and how one can manipulate the immunity and protection. Examples include making synthetic antigen presenting cells or lymphoid organs.