NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the panel responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is interim president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an advisor to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and of advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Councils is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and interim vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
This project was supported by the Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG05-91ER45457, the Army Research Office under Contract No. DAAL03-91-G-0055, the National Science Foundation under Contract No. DNR-9103091, and the Office of Naval Research under Grant No. N00014-92-J-1867. Partial support for this project was provided by the Basic Science Fund of the National Academy of Sciences, whose contributors include AT&T Bell Laboratories, Atlantic Richfield Foundation, BP America, Inc., Dow Chemical Company, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, IBM Corporation, Merck and Company, Inc., Monsanto Company, and Shell Oil Companies Foundation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily express the views of the sponsors.
Cover: Scanning electron micrograph of the growth front of abalone shell. (Courtesy of A. Belcher, D. Morse, and G. Stucky, University of California, Santa Barbara.)
Copyright 1996 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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Printed in the United States of America
PANEL ON BIOMOLECULAR MATERIALS
PHILIP A. PINCUS,
University of California, Santa Barbara,
Chair
JAN BOCK,
Exxon Chemical Company
NOEL CLARK,
University of Colorado
PETER EISENBERGER,
Princeton University
EVAN A. EVANS,
University of British Columbia
LYNN W. JELINSKI,
Cornell University
CHARLES M. KNOBLER,
University of California, Los Angeles
RALPH NUZZO,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
JOEL M. SCHNUR,
Naval Research Laboratory
EDWIN THOMAS,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
DAVID TIRRELL,
University of Massachusetts
DANIEL F. MORGAN, Program Officer
RONALD D. TAYLOR, Senior Program Officer (1992–1994)
SOLID STATE SCIENCES COMMITTEE
PAUL A. FLEURY,
AT&T Bell Laboratories,
Chair
JAMES ROBERTO,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
Vice Chair
JULIA WEERTMAN,
Northwestern University,
Past Chair
S. JAMES ALLEN,
University of California at Santa Barbara
NEIL ASHCROFT,
Cornell University
JOHN C. BRAVMAN,
Stanford University
Y. AUSTIN CHANG,
University of Wisconsin at Madison
DANIEL S. CHEMLA,
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
UMA CHOWDHRY,
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
MARC A. KASTNER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
CHARLES McMAHON,
University of Pennsylvania
DONALD W. MURPHY,
AT&T Bell Laboratories
DONALD R. PAUL,
University of Texas at Austin
S. THOMAS PICRAUX,
Sandia National Laboratories
JOHN J. RUSH,
National Institute of Standards and Technology
THOMAS P. RUSSELL,
IBM Almaden Research Center
Former member and liaison to the study panel:
J. DAVID LITSTER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
DANIEL F. MORGAN, Program Officer
BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
DAVID N. SCHRAMM,
University of Chicago,
Chair
ROBERT C. DYNES,
University of California at San Diego,
Vice Chair
LLOYD ARMSTRONG, JR.,
University of Southern California
DAVID H. AUSTON,
Rice University
IRA BERNSTEIN,
Yale University
PRAVEEN CHAUDHARI,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
SANDRA M. FABER,
University of California at Santa Cruz
HANS FRAUENFELDER,
Los Alamos National Laboratory
JEROME I. FRIEDMAN,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MARGARET J. GELLER,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
MARTHA P. HAYNES,
Cornell University
WILLIAM KLEMPERER,
Harvard University
AL NARATH,
Sandia National Laboratories
JOSEPH M. PROUD,
GTE Corporation (retired)
ANTHONY C.S. READHEAD,
California Institute of Technology
ROBERT C. RICHARDSON,
Cornell University
JOHANNA STACHEL,
State University of New York at Stony Brook
DAVID WILKINSON,
Princeton University
Former member and liaison to the study panel:
HOWARD C. BERG,
Harvard University
DONALD C. SHAPERO, Director
ROBERT L. RIEMER, Associate Director
DANIEL F. MORGAN, Program Officer
NATASHA CASEY, Senior Administrative Associate
CHRISTOPHER HANNA, Project Assistant
COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS
ROBERT J. HERMANN,
United Technologies Corporation,
Co-chair
W. CARL LINEBERGER,
University of Colorado,
Co-chair
PETER M. BANKS,
Environmental Research Institute of Michigan
LAWRENCE D. BROWN,
University of Pennsylvania
RONALD G. DOUGLAS,
Texas A&M University
JOHN E. ESTES,
University of California, Santa Barbara
L. LOUIS HEGEDUS,
Elf Atochem North America, Inc.
JOHN E. HOPCROFT,
Cornell University
RHONDA J. HUGHES,
Bryn Mawr College
SHIRLEY A. JACKSON,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
KENNETH H. KELLER,
Council on Foreign Relations
KENNETH I. KELLERMANN,
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
KEN KENNEDY,
Rice University
MARGARET G. KIVELSON,
University of California, Los Angeles
DANIEL KLEPPNER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
JOHN KREICK,
Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company
MARSHA I. LESTER,
University of Pennsylvania
THOMAS A. PRINCE,
California Institute of Technology
NICHOLAS P. SAMIOS,
Brookhaven National Laboratory
L.E. SCRIVEN,
University of Minnesota
SHMUEL WINOGRAD,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
CHARLES A. ZRAKET,
MITRE Corporation (retired)
NORMAN METZGER, Executive Director
Preface
The group that prepared this report, a multidisciplinary panel with expertise in the physical sciences, the life sciences, and engineering, was formed in 1991. It operated under the auspices of the Solid State Sciences Committee of the National Research Council's Board on Physics and Astronomy. The panel met three times during the course of the study to discuss the issues and prepare drafts of this report. It also held ad hoc meetings in Boston, Princeton, and Los Angeles during 1992–1993 to obtain input from other members of the biomolecular materials research community.
The proposal for this study originated in the continuing efforts of the Solid State Sciences Committee (SSSC) to identify forefront developments in materials research and physical chemistry. The study plan was developed with the help of a program initiation meeting chaired by Mark Wrighton. The project was adopted by the SSSC as a priority for its program development efforts. The plan for the study called for an assessment of self-assembling materials.
Shortly after the SSSC proposed a study of self-assembling materials, the National Science Foundation decided to convene a workshop on a closely related topic, biomolecular materials. Several SSSC members attended the workshop and were impressed with the exciting developments taking place in this area. As a result, the scope of the study was broadened to include not only self-assembling but also biomolecular materials. The scope remains limited, however, to structures on scales ranging from molecules to membranes.
Cellular and tissue-scale structures have been addressed recently by another National Research Council report (Hierarchical Structures in Biology As a Guide for New Materials Technology, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1994), prepared by the Committee on Synthetic Hierarchical Structures of the National Materials Advisory Board.
The charge to the study panel was threefold:
- Assess the status of research on biomolecular materials in the United States.
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- Identify the scientific forefronts and opportunities; provide a clear definition of research in the field.
- Identify the technological opportunities.
- Assess these opportunities for research using the criteria of intellectual challenge, prospects for illumination of classical research questions within specific fields, importance as a multidisciplinary research effort, and potential for applications.
- Assess applications using the criteria of potential for contributing to industrial competitiveness, national defense, human health, and other aspects of human welfare.
- Identify and address the issues in the field.
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- Assess the quality, size, and scope of the educational programs necessary to advance the field.
- Assess the institutional infrastructure in which research in this area is conducted and identify changes that would improve the research and educational effort.
- Identify small-scale instrumentation needs.
- Develop a research strategy that is responsive to the issues.
- Compare the U.S. program with those of Japan and Western Europe. Identify opportunities for international cooperation.
- Assess the linkage of theory and experiment.
- Assess manpower requirements and the prospects for meeting them.
- Identify the users of scientific advances in this area and their needs.
- Make recommendations to federal agencies and to the community as to optimum funding strategies for addressing the issues.
The panel gratefully acknowledges the considerable assistance it received from the biomolecular materials research community, including substantial input from C. Safinya, G. Stucky, and J. Zasadzinski of the University of California, Santa Barbara. The SSSC is indebted to the co-chairs of the NSF workshop on biomolecular materials, Hans Frauenfelder and George Benedek, for their advice in framing the study and to Mark Wrighton for leading the program initiation effort.
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Biomolecular Self-Assembling MaterialsScientific and Technological Frontiers |