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Graduate Summer Talks - Chris Pierce "Micro-husbandry and Bacterial Machines"

Preema Pais
May 26, 2015
4:00PM - 5:00PM
4138 Physics Research Building

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Add to Calendar 2015-05-26 16:00:00 2015-05-26 17:00:00 Graduate Summer Talks - Chris Pierce "Micro-husbandry and Bacterial Machines" In Richard Feynman’s classic 1959 lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, he foresaw the now eminent field of nanotechnology. Even at this early stage, he made a connection between human attempts to apply the physics of small length scales to technological development and biological entities, citing them as a model for nanotechnology. In the intervening decades this connection and the idea of biomimetics has become increasingly salient. In this talk, I will present some of the basic attributes of bacteria in the language of physics, and discuss recent developments involving the integration of bacteria with “lab-on-a-chip” devices. This area encompasses two broad research trajectories: devices designed to answer biophysical questions about the nature of bacteria, and devices which exploit bacteria to perform tasks. These latter “bacterial machines” circumvent the process of biomimetic engineering by controlling and taking advantage of the physical and chemical activities of bacteria directly. This notion of using bacteria to perform tasks which I call “micro-husbandry” is not new. However, with the power of modern device fabrication and microfluidics, we hope to extend the use bacteria in human life beyond their traditional roles in digestion, cheese production, and sauerkraut (to name a few).  4138 Physics Research Building Department of Physics physics@osu.edu America/New_York public

In Richard Feynman’s classic 1959 lecture “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, he foresaw the now eminent field of nanotechnology. Even at this early stage, he made a connection between human attempts to apply the physics of small length scales to technological development and biological entities, citing them as a model for nanotechnology. In the intervening decades this connection and the idea of biomimetics has become increasingly salient. In this talk, I will present some of the basic attributes of bacteria in the language of physics, and discuss recent developments involving the integration of bacteria with “lab-on-a-chip” devices. This area encompasses two broad research trajectories: devices designed to answer biophysical questions about the nature of bacteria, and devices which exploit bacteria to perform tasks. These latter “bacterial machines” circumvent the process of biomimetic engineering by controlling and taking advantage of the physical and chemical activities of bacteria directly. This notion of using bacteria to perform tasks which I call “micro-husbandry” is not new. However, with the power of modern device fabrication and microfluidics, we hope to extend the use bacteria in human life beyond their traditional roles in digestion, cheese production, and sauerkraut (to name a few).