Basic research opportunities focused on bio-based and bio-inspired materials and potential applications

Abstract

The U.S. Army Research Office (ARO) serves as the Army's premier extramural basic research agency in the engineering, physical, information and life sciences. ARO drives the national basic research agenda and programs in these areas to create new scientific discoveries and increase knowledge through high-risk, high-payoff research opportunities with academia and industry. ARO also ensures that the results of these efforts are made available to the Army research and development community for the pursuit of long-term technological applications. ARO is supporting emerging research opportunities in the areas of bio-based and bio-inspired materials that focus on four primary goals: (i) Using biology to produce materials, (ii) Using biology as a material, (iii) Integrating biology with synthetic materials, and (iv) Imparting properties inherent in biological systems to materials. Using biology to produce biological, non-biological, and hybrid materials Biological organisms have evolved complex synthetic capabilities that are often unrivaled, if not impossible, by traditional chemical approaches, with products ranging from small molecule chemicals to biological polymers to macromolecular assemblies with complex catalytic or mechanical activities to metallic and semiconductor nanoparticles. In addition to the many valuable products naturally produced by biological systems, such as the chemotherapeutic agent Taxol produced by an endophytic fungus living within the bark of the Pacific Yew tree, biological systems are also being engineered to produce specific products of interest. From the advent of genetic engineering approaches in the 1970s to the recent emergence of the field of synthetic biology, the research community continues to push the boundaries of biological engineering and the complexity of the products that are synthesized by biological systems. The capability to efficiently produce valuable chemicals and materials using biological systems is particularly desirable due to the mild synthesis conditions and general lack of toxic byproducts.