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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
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Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials

Scientific and Technological Frontiers

Panel on Biomolecular Materials

Solid State Sciences Committee

Board on Physics and Astronomy

Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications

National Research Council

National Academy Press
Washington, D.C.
1996

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
×

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.

Additional copies of this report are available from:

Board on Physics and Astronomy

National Research Council, HA 562

2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20418

Printed in the United States of America

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
×

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)

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
×

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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
×

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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
×

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

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
×

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:

  1. Assess the status of research on biomolecular materials in the United States.
    1. Identify the scientific forefronts and opportunities; provide a clear definition of research in the field.
    2. Identify the technological opportunities.
    3. 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.
    4. Assess applications using the criteria of potential for contributing to industrial competitiveness, national defense, human health, and other aspects of human welfare.
  1. Identify and address the issues in the field.
    1. Assess the quality, size, and scope of the educational programs necessary to advance the field.
    2. Assess the institutional infrastructure in which research in this area is conducted and identify changes that would improve the research and educational effort.
    3. Identify small-scale instrumentation needs.
    4. Develop a research strategy that is responsive to the issues.
    5. Compare the U.S. program with those of Japan and Western Europe. Identify opportunities for international cooperation.
    6. Assess the linkage of theory and experiment.
    7. Assess manpower requirements and the prospects for meeting them.
    8. Identify the users of scientific advances in this area and their needs.
  1. Make recommendations to federal agencies and to the community as to optimum funding strategies for addressing the issues.
Page viii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
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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.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials: Scientific and Technological Frontiers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5502.
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Biomolecular Self-Assembling Materials

Scientific and Technological Frontiers

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