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Researchers in the Center for the Science and Engineering of Materials (CSEM) at the California Institute of Technology are developing a new class of biomaterials for use in surgery and regenerative medicine. These new materials are produced by genetic engineering, and consist of pieces of natural proteins that have been stitched together in new ways to allow control of both their mechanical properties and their interactions with cells and tissues after surgical implantation.

R.M. Suter /CMU MRSEC, Carnegie Mellon University, NSF DMR- 0520425

Paul A. Heiney and Virgil Percec

In March, a group of physicists from the Chicago MRSEC visited Washington DC to talk about science to Congressional Representatives, their staff, and others. The message: basic research is vital to America's economy and our childrens' futures. In the photo, current MRSEC Director, Sidney Nagel (left) demonstrates the properties of materials to CUNY Prof. Myriam Sarachik (former President of the APS) and U.S. Rep. Vernon J.

Several MRL Faculty members were honored this summer and early fall for achievements in and significant contributions to their respective fields. The Millennium Prize Foundation of Finland announced that Professor Shuji Nakamura, who is involved with MRL's IRG-2 project on Oxide Based Semiconductors, is the sole winner of the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize, accompanied by one million euros (about $1.3 million in U.S. dollars).

In a human body, phospholipids form all kinds of different membranes and self-arrange into different objects. Some form unstable tubes. Such tubes in water may serve as templates for making nanotubes which may store drugs or other chemicals, or may suck up other species.

Europium-doped yttrium oxide (Eu-Y2O3) luminescent films have been produced directly from a solution precursor using a radio frequency (RF) plasma spray technique. Highly crystalline and luminescent films were grown on Si (100) and steel substrates by this process. X-ray diffraction analyses on these films confirm that polycrystalline cubic Y2O3 phase has formed in-situ with no impurity phases.