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MEAM Seminar: “Transport and Delivery by Active Materials”
January 23 at 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
One of the major challenges in robotics is controlling micromanipulation by active and adaptive materials. Existing delivery technologies often suffer from limited navigation control, low speeds, and proneness to environmental disturbances. Biology often solves these problems by collectively organizing actuation at the microscale. For example, pathogens are removed from our lungs by an active carpet of cilia [1]. Inside these cilia, in turn, microtubules form highways for molecular motors. In this talk, I will present developments in the microfabrication of “artificial cilia” [2] and “artificial microtubules” [3]. We designed amphibious cilia that can transport both liquids and dry objects. These carpets can sort particles by size and by shape using a crowd-surfing effect. We also designed magnetic microtubules, structured microfibers that rapidly guide particles through flow networks such as the cardiovascular system. These works offer unique strategies for robust microscale delivery, but equally shed light on non-equilibrium diffusion [4] in biological transport processes.
[1] Ramirez-San Juan GR et al. “Multi-scale spatial heterogeneity enhances particle clearance in airway ciliary arrays”, Nat. Phys. 16: 958–964 (2020)
[2] Demirörs AF et al. “Amphibious transport of fluids and solids by soft magnetic carpets”, Adv. Sci. 202102510 (2021)
[3] Gu H et al. “Artificial microtubules for rapid and collective transport of magnetic microcargos”, Nat. Mach. Intel. 4: 678–684 (2022)
[4] Guzman-Lastra F et al. “Active carpets drive non-equilibrium diffusion and enhanced molecular fluxes,” Nat. Commun. 12: 1906 (2021)
Arnold J.T.M. Mathijssen
Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania
Arnold Mathijssen was named ‘30 under 30’ by Scientific American and was awarded the Sir Sam Edwards PhD Thesis Prize for his work in group of Julia Yeomans FRS at the University Oxford (2016). Supported by an HFSP cross-disciplinary fellowship, he moved to the lab of Manu Prakash at Stanford University, where the American Physical Society presented him the Charles Kittel Award (2019). He is now Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy at UPenn, co-director of the Penn working group on Environmental and Biological Fluid Dynamics, and chair of the 2024 CUWiP Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics.