In-house Research

The in-house research program at the BioPACIFIC MIP focuses on the integrated simulation, fabrication, and property characterization of tactic, sequence-controlled, or stimuli-responsive polymers synthesized from a library of chiral, regioselective, and functional bio-sourced monomers.

Synthetic biology in the automated and high-throughput Living Bioreactor Platform (focus at UCLA) produces monomers with stereospecific functional groups from yeast, fungi and bacteria that feed into an Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) based loop of hierarchical computation, automated polymerization and flow chemistry (focus at UCSB). Advanced characterization equipment suites (focus at both UCLA and UCSB) are used to study polymers with high thermal stability, chirality, water solubility, biological activity, as well as stimuli-responsive polymers prepared using automated synthesis facilities (focus at UCSB).

The MGI loop integrates state-of-the-art simulation tools in order to predict the properties of synthesized materials and systematically explore the design landscape of new chiral, regioselective, and functional bio-sourced monomers. Simulation is tightly integrated with structure-property relationship determination to guide molecular-level engineering and chemical formulation toward specific materials targets. A key goal at BioPACIFIC MIP is to provide an understanding of how bio-based materials assemble and carry out function.

Synergistic Exploratory Thrusts

The BioPACIFIC MIP in-house research program is structured around two Synergistic Exploratory Thrusts (SETs) focused on maximizing the impact of BioPACIFIC MIP’s open-access Materials Innovation Infrastructure for the user community and addressing grand challenges in sustainable materials (SET 1) and next-generation microelectronics (SET 2).

SET 1 – Bioderived Materials

Develop scalable routes to new polymeric materials by harnessing synthetic biology to create bioderived chemicals using the Living Biofoundry (UCLA) and transform them into new functional monomers and polymers with the Synthetic Chemistry Platform advanced 3D printing (UCSB).

Evaluating the (co)polymerizability of these unique building blocks will provide a synergistic feedback loop that facilitates the development of new materials with compelling properties for diverse applications. SET 1 building blocks and materials developed at scale, such as bioderived diols, dithiols, heterocycles, and peptidyl monomers, will be available to the broader user community as part of the BioPACIFIC MIP materials library.

SET 2 – Bio-inspired Materials and Processing

Precisely tune photophysical interactions and thermodynamic interactions at the molecular scale availed by using biological polymers of precise sequence and size to achieve next-generation photoresists.

The distinction of materials is important as it implies functionality that arises from assemblies of more than one molecule which are often the result of both chemistry, thermodynamics and processing, scale, and an understanding of structure property relationships. SET 2 will develop an understanding of the relationships between monomer sequence and nanoscale structure to control macroscopic material properties. An initial focus on photoresists development will provide the microelectronics community with new materials and processing workflows.